Apparently, my mother was eating eggplant parmesan, her favorite, the night I was born. This summer, a friend of mine made it and I begged her to teach me how. So, fellow cooking-wannabes, here’s:
Eggplant Parmemazing
You’ll need:
1 small eggplant
Mozzarella cheese
2 eggs
Bread crumbs
Olive oil
Box of pasta
Tomato Sauce
Okay! Slice the eggplant into thin pieces. Crack the eggs into a bowl, scramble and place the bread crumbs on a plate. Take each slice of eggplant, dip it in the egg and cover both sides with bread crumbs. Heat a skillet, add olive oil and when heated, place the eggplant on the pan. Keep adding oil throughout the process and depending on the amount of eggplant, you’ll probably be able to fit three or four pieces on the skillet. Fry the eggplant until each side is golden brown, looking crispy. Throughout this process, begin to boil water for pasta and put the oven on. Grab a plate and paper towels and put the eggplant on the paper towels and drain out the extra oil [it gets a little icky]. Do this for all of the eggplant. It’s pretty time consuming, but it is so goddamn worth it.
After all of your eggplant is fried, grab a cookie sheet and place all of it on top [it can be touching and stacked a little, no worries!]. Trickle the tomato sauce over the eggplant until they are all at least half covered. Now! Do some more trickling, this time with the Mozzarella cheese over the sauce. Finished? Alright. The oven should be ready now, so place the sheet in the oven so the cheese can melt to greatness. While it’s in the oven, make your pasta awesome by stirring, of course. Only leave the sheet in the oven to melt the cheese [you’ve already cooked the eggplant] so keep watching it until the cheese is melted completely. It really should only take a few minutes.
By now, everything should be ready! Strain the pasta, take the cookie sheet out and grab your bowls. Place the pasta at the bottom and then toss the cheesy, saucy eggplant on top. If necessary, have some Parmesan cheese on the table for any super-cheese lovers.
It takes at least an hour, but every bite was worth it, oh so worth it.