This is a dish that I partly start to prepare the day before I want to serve it. Follow my recipe and you will get a delicious top-quality result!
Ingredients (for 4 person)
2 or 3 fresh big eggplants (the round variety is better)
Flour for frying
Peanut oil
1 large buffalo milk mozzarella
200 grams freshly grated Parmesan cheese
For the tomato sauce:
1 kilo good-quality ripe tomatoes
2 peeled garlic cloves
1 fresh small chili pepper
1 dessert spoon sugar
A large handful fresh basil leaves
100 grams Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Tools
1 saucepan
1 frying pan
4 individual baking dish or a large one
Paper towels
How to proceed
I take a saucepan, put the entire tomatoes in it, add sugar, salt, the cloves of garlic, and let it cook slowly without cover. Once my tomato sauce is reduced (after about half an hour) I season it with olive oil and add a whole little chili pepper, basil, next I reserve the sauce.
Then I wash the eggplants, remove their stalks and slice them up regularly into half cm thick slice. Now I coat them in flour. Then I put a large frying pan on medium-fire. I pour enough peanuts oil to coat the bottom well. I fry 4 eggplant slices at a time until the first side is golden, then I turn it and fry on the other side (about 2 or 3 minutes per side). Once fried, I put the slices on a large quantity of paper towel in a plate: doing 3 tiers of paper, 1 tier eggplants, then paper…
Now I take a weight (something heavy) and lay it on the top on the last paper towel layer.
I place the plate with eggplants to drain in the refrigerator for one day.
The day after, I take off the paper towel and put my slices in some new one for about half an hour, you don’t need to put a weight this time.
Now preheat the oven to 180 C.
I take a baking dish (I prefer to use little individual oven-to-table baking dish, it’s so pretty on the table and very handy).
I start making a layer of eggplants on the bottom of the tin, I spread the tomato sauce topping the layer with Parmesan. I repeat the layers 3-4 times. For the last layer: I put the eggplants, then the buffalo mozzarella in slices, then another layer of eggplants and a final sprinkle of Parmesan.
I bake it for 30 minutes 180 C. and when the cheese is melted and gratinéed I serve the Parmigiana immediately
Buon Appetito!
The Rita’s Eggplant Parmigiana is perfect paired with a bottle of nice red wine; at Tuscan-experience we serve it with a beautiful ‘Rosso di Montalcino’ from winery ‘Gianni Brunelli’. Laura had us trying their 2013 which was…fabulous…
