Staycation - Eggplant Parmesan

The staycation continues, and i truly embraced the staying in idea and had eric over for dinner and made a version of eggplant parmesan i had tried once, but that one was deepfried. Although it was delicious, it wasn't very healthy, so i thought i would try and bake it this time

The ingredients

Salting the eggplant

Some people find eggplant bitter - and depending on how you cook it that can be true. I find that the smaller eggplant i used or asian eggplant don't suffer from that, but another remedy of this is salting the eggplant. Simply cut the eggplant as you want to serve them, then toss with salt and allow to sit in the colander and this will "sweat" out the sour liquid. Allow to sit for 25 minutes and then rinse them off and pat dry.

Breading the eggplant

So i've mentioned before about breading things, and i've basically used the same technique to do these eggplants. For the breading i mixed panko crumbs with parmesan which is a nice twist. First i dredged them in flour, then the beaten egg and finally the panko-parmesan.

Eggplant Out of the Oven

The ingredients ready for assembly

I made a light tomato sauce by sauteing some garlic, then adding a can of chopped low sodium tomatoes, chili peppers and pepper. I cooked it until it had thickened. You could also use jarred sauce. I just didn't have any.

Assembled

After putting a little bit of the sauce on the bottom of the pan I stacked the ingredients - eggplant, basil, tomato then mozzarella filling the pan. After i filled the pan i added more parmesan, the rest of the tomato sauce and some diced mozzarella. I covered the pan with foil and baked it until it was warm in the centre, then removed the foil and allowed the cheese to melt and brown a little.

The Meal

I served this meal with caesar salad, in which i used polenta crutons, lightly dusted with parmesan and baked and bruschetta.

Bruschetta on multi grain baguette

Basil

I would like to note that i used the basil from my hydroponic grower!