Eggplant Parmesan

Healthy Vegetarian dishes

Servings: Serves 6

This is by far Lynn’s favorite comfort food. This eggplant parm is baked, not fried. The ingredients are simple and clean. You start by slicing the eggplant super thin… try to find the male eggplants, as they have fewer seeds (just look for the eggplants with the rounder bottoms). When you do the initial bake of the eggplant, they come out of the oven having a look and texture to them being eggplant crackers… I could eat them just like this. It's amazing how unctuous and creamy this dish becomes just by the act of layering sauce and eggplant “crackers”, with a thin layer of mozzarella. I think I need another piece!

Ingredients

EGGPLANT:

• 4 pounds eggplant (Choose the large variety. Make sure they are firm and smooth. Also, choose male eggplants. They have fewer seeds and have a rounder, smoother bottom)

• 1 cup flour

• Salt

• Generous amounts of olive oil

• 1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

• 1/2 pound buffalo-milk mozzarella (if the balls are small, get two, fresh Mozzarella works well too)

SAUCE:

• 2 28 ounces cans of San Marzano (any brand is fine) canned whole peeled tomatoes (add another can if you want extra sauce left over)

• 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

• 4-6 Anchovies (optional) you won’t taste like “anchovy”, but it will add umami* to your sauce

• Enough olive oil to cover the pan

Directions… a labor of love:

For the Eggplant:

1. Peel the eggplant and slice long ways into 1/4 inch slices.

2. Sprinkle each layer with salt and place into a colander, overlapping and salting as you go. Each slice should be salted. After you fill the colander, place a plate on top and weight it with a heavy pan or a tea kettle filled with water. Let the eggplant sweat for 30 minutes or more.

3. While the eggplant sweats, make the sauce

4. Remove the eggplant from the colander and thoroughly pat dry each slice

5. Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Cover the bottom of a baking sheet or two with olive oil

6. Dredge the eggplant slices in flour, shaking off any excess. Place on the baking sheets and drizzle the each slice with olive oil. Bake until brown on one side (about 15 minutes or so) and turn over and brown the other side. Repeat until you have cooked all the eggplant

7. Using a 7x11 baking dish (I like ceramic or earthenware, but you can use stainless steel as well), spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom and layer the eggplant until it completely covers the bottom (it's like a puzzle!)

8. Sprinkle generously with the grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. Add another layer of sauce and then the eggplant. Continue to build the layers until you are about two layers from the top, then add a single layer of sliced mozzarella. Finish with a couple more layers of eggplant, sauce, and parmesen. Finish the top with parmesan

9. Bake on the upper third of a 400 degree oven. Check it after it's been in the oven for 20 minutes. You may find that it throws off more liquid as it bakes. If so, press down on the eggplant and draw off any excess liquid. Cook for another 15 minutes or so. Let stand for a good 15 or 20 minutes before serving

For the Sauce:

1. Cover the bottom of a sauce pan with olive oil and heat over medium high heat

2. Add the sliced garlic and anchovies (optional) and let it cook until is sizzles (do not brown the garlic). The anchovies will breakdown as the sauce cooks and you won’t know they are there other than the amped up flavor of your sauce

3. Add the canned whole tomatoes and their juice and salt

4. Stir and chop coarsely using a potato masher or two knives chopping crossways

5. Lower the heat and simmer until reduced by almost half

NOTES:

• Umami is one of the five basic tastes, along with sweet, sour, salty and bitter taste sensations. It's most commonly defined as “savoury”, but the characteristics of umami can also be described as “meaty”, “complex” or even just “deliciousness”. A Japanese word, umami is pronounced: “oo-ma-mee”