You Breaded an Eggplant for the Last Time
When used in casseroles and sandwiches, the “bread and fry” method appears to be the default method for preparing eggplant. As a southern person, I don’t mind breading and / or fried, but eggplants don’t need it . There are two other effective ways to prepare eggplant for layering casseroles and sandwiches, and neither requires egg sauce.
Fry in salt
We’ve covered this method before , but it works so well (and I use it so often) that it deserves to be emphasized again. A.A. Newton first learned about this technique in one of Chris Yenbamrun’s Instagram stories , and it should be the least fussy eggplant cooking technique I’ve ever seen:
Instead of salting the eggplant and frying them in liters of oil, he tosses raw, completely unprepared slices into a salted frying pan without oil. The slices of cooked eggplant are topped with copious amounts of olive oil, garlic, chili flakes and herbs like lasagne.
In addition to the complete absence of salting and plum, this method is also devoid of vegetable oil. Yenbamgroong completes the salted slices with olive oil after they are cooked, but very hot, dry salt gives the eggplant a smoky, evenly charred appearance and a silky inside without any damp spots. (As it turns out, the salt in the pan gets very hot, so the moisture that comes out of the eggplant evaporates quickly.)
You can place these deep-browned slices in a baking dish with lots of herbs, flavors, butter and / or funky loose cheese, or you can take it all and sprinkle it on a bun (bun, hero, sub – what the hell , you name it). I poured the garlic honey on the slices and ate them as a side dish and loved it.
Season with salt, then bake (in a lot of oil)
A few weekends ago, I asked AA Newton (the undisputed queen of eggplant) if she could recommend a good eggplant parmesa recipe. “A version of the ingenious Food52 recipe,” she replied. “Bake slices instead of frying >>>>>.”
I am pleased to report that the recipe is not only ingenious, but also a manifestation of elegance and restraint. The sauce is made up of three ingredients , and the eggplant preparation step is startlingly – almost suspiciously – simple. All you have to do in terms of preparation is peeling the eggplant, chopping it into 1/4-inch boards (although I did round ones), salt the slices, put them in a colander, and weight them down with a heavy plate or tea. kettle filled with water. After half an hour, blot the slices dry with paper towels and roll them in flour, making sure to remove any excess.
Then grease a couple of baking sheets (or one very large one), adding just enough to lightly coat the bottom, and place the sliced eggplant pieces on the baking sheet. Sprinkle each slice with a little oil and cook in an oven at 450 ℉ until the tops are lightly browned, then turn over to brown the bottom. It sounds too simple to be worthy of the name “eggplant”, but it works .
I’m not Italian American, but my boyfriend is, and he was skeptical that this would make a good eggplant mixture. “Are they not breaded?” was all he asked for before retreating into the safe living room, but it was enough. Although he dared not say more – I glanced at him – I knew he did not trust this recipe.
He may be Italian-American, but I cook better, and A.A. Newton knows her eggplant, and I was right to take her advice and trust in the process for this recipe. One bite, and the skeptical Italian said it was the best he had ever eaten. It was the perfect sip of crispy but spicy eggplant, hot, garlic, marinara and sticky salty cheese. There was no wet breading, no strangely separated egg layer, much less oil to clean, and no greasy hair from frying in a pan.
This oven-roasted but custard eggplant is incredible in a Parmesan situation, but it can also be layered with herbs and onions like the salt-fried eggplant mentioned above, or put in a simple parmesia-free sandwich. I would try Parmesan . The apartment is very nice.