Nonna’s Eggplant Parmigiana

Serves: 4

Prep: 01:30 hours

Cook: 01:30 hours

Ingredients

1kg of eggplant – preferably long, thin and firm, such as Japanese eggplant

50g of “00” flour – for the eggplants

1 cup of sugo / Italian tomato sauce

250g Mozzarella cheese

150g Parmesan cheese (grated)

100g Smoked Provolone cheese (if you can’t find Provolone, another smoked cheese will work)

1 litre of vegetable oil (for frying)

Small bunch of basil

Salt and pepper

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Directions

A note before you start. The type of eggplant you use is important. Seek out the long, firm and skinny varieties as they have less water in them, which means your parmigiana won’t go soggy; you’ll also have more flavour. The same is true for the mozzarella. Fresh is great, but take it out of the water two days prior and let it dry out in the fridge. Otherwise the residual water that is inside the cheese will also make for a soggy parmigiana.

Preparing the eggplants

Wash the eggplant and trim the ends. Peel the skin in long lines but don’t peel the eggplant completely. You want to take off about 50%; leave lines of skin on the eggplants so that they look stripy.

Slice the eggplants lengthways about 1-1.5cm thick. Salt the slices and leave for around 30mins – this helps to draw out excess water in the eggplant and reduce any bitter flavours.

After 30mins squeeze the strips to remove the excess water. Do not wash the salt off; eggplants are like sponges and will soak the water back up.

Drape the strips of eggplant over the flour and be sure to coat both sides.

Frying the eggplants

In a large frying pan, heat the vegetable oil (you can use peanut oil, just don’t use olive oil).

Fry the strips of eggplant that have been coated in flour until they are golden brown. Once they are ready, transfer them to paper towel to soak up any residual oil. You will have to do this in batches.

Prepping the parmigiana

Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius.

Gather all of your ingredients and layer them in your baking dish in this order… Sugo (not too much; less is better), eggplant strips (layered over themselves to make not quite a double layer), Parmesan, Mozzarella, Smoked Provolone, Fresh Basil.

Repeat. Then repeat again, however omit Mozzarella and Smoked Provolone on the final layer and instead finish with Parmesan and sugo. This way you’ll have a nice even top that won’t burn. If the final layer is higher than the baking dish, don’t worry, this is normal. It will reduce in size.

Baking the parmigiana

Bake for one hour, then let it rest for at least 30 minutes; this helps enhance the flavours. It’s even better re-heated the next day.