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eggplant-parmesan.md

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Eggplant (or Chicken) Parmesan

Notes

  • The perfect plate of eggplant parmesan involves this recipe served with angel hair pasta and marinara sauce (marinara-sauce.md).
  • Eggplant tastes bitter and gets mushy when you cook it, unless you brine/cure it first. Don't skip those steps in the instructions. The use of corn starch in this recipe also serves this end.
  • To make chicken parmesan, do this exact recipe, except replace the eggplant with chicken tenders. Pound the chicken between two sheets of plastic wrap to soften them and get them to a uniform thickness. You want them to be rather thin so they cook through before the crust burns. Do not brine the chicken the way you brine the eggplant.
  • You can test the vegetable oil to see if it's hot enough to cook with. Dip your finger in a cup of room temperature water, then (from a safe distance) let a drop of water drip into the oil. If it's hot enough to cook, the drop will immediately sputter and spit in the pan.
  • You can opt to leave the eggplant skin on (my preference) or use a vegetable peeler to remove it. The skin is very slick, so breading usually doesn't stick very well to it. Don't freak out if you can't get the eggs and panko stuff to stick to eggplant skin. The color of the skin adds a lot to the presentation of this dish.

Ingredients

  • 1 eggplant
  • Kosher salt
  • Black pepper
  • Corn starch
  • 2-3 eggs
  • 1 cup panko bread crumbs
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • Italian seasoning (oregano, thyme, fennel seed, rosemary)
  • 6 oz block parmesan cheese, shredded finely
  • Vegetable oil

Prep

  • Slice the eggplant into 1/4" to 1/2" rounds
  • Put panko, flour, italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and 2-3 oz of the shredded parmesan cheese into a tupperware dish, seal it, and shake it up until it's blended.
  • You will need two small plates and a large plate to prep the eggplant.
  • You will need a large skillet to fry the eggplant. If you have a grease trap, you should use that.
  • You will need a ton of paper towels.
  • You will need tongs.

Directions

Brining the eggplant

  1. Place a cookie sheet on the counter (it usually actually takes me two of these rigs to produce a full recipe). Place on top of the cookie sheet a cookie cooling rack.
  2. Place the eggplant rounds on the cooling racks.
  3. Sprinkle kosher salt all over the tops of the eggplant slices. Do this quite liberally; do not worry about how this much salt must taste.
  4. Allow the salty eggplant to rest for a while, maybe half an hour to an hour. The eggplant will sweat and eventually pool up with a brownish liquid.
  5. Flip the eggplant slices over, allowing the brown liquid to fall into the cookie sheets.
  6. Sprinkle this side of the eggplant with kosher salt, still quite liberally.
  7. Allow to rest for another half hour to an hour.
  8. Place the eggplant into a collander and place in the sink. Run cold water over them. One by one, pick the slices up and massage them to thoroughly remove the salt from the eggplant. If you don't do this enough and clean enough of the salt off, the end result will be extremely salty! Place the eggplants on top of paper towels.
  9. Use paper towels to pat the eggplant slices dry. Apply a little pressure to encourage the removal of liquid, but do not smash the eggplant!
  10. The eggplant should not be wet when you cook. You won't be able to make them completely dry without destroying the eggplant, so target "damp". At this point, the eggplant will keep very well for the day in the refrigerator. I like to get this part done early in the day, then cook it for dinner.

Cooking the eggplant

  1. Prepare a five-station lineup: 0. The brined, washed, and dried eggplant slices 0. A small plate with a good amount (maybe 1/4 cup to start) of cornstarch on it 0. A small plate with 2 eggs on it, well-scrambled 0. The tupperware dish with the panko/flour/seasoning mixture in it 0. A large plate with paper towels on it
  2. Use this five-station lineup to: 0. Dredge the eggplant through the cornstarch to create a thin moisture barrier 0. Dredge the eggplant through the scrambled eggs 0. Place the eggplant in the flour mixture, then pick up mixture and pour it on top. Flip the eggplant over and repeat on the other side. 0. Place the eggplant on the large plate to let it rest.
  3. Let the eggplant rest for at least 5 minutes before you start frying it.
  4. Put enough vegetable oil in a large skillet to cover the bottom maybe 1/4" deep. Turn the stove to medium. Allow the oil to fully heat before adding eggplant (see Notes).
  5. When the oil is hot, use tongs to carefully place eggplant slices into it. Do not drop the eggplant in. Do not let the eggplant flop in. These are good ways to develop third degree oil burns. Gently place it in with the tongs.
  6. Let the eggplant fry for 1-2 minutes per side. The breading should be golden-brown or a little beyond that. As you cook, pay attention to the heat of the oil. "Turn the stove to medium" means different things to different stoves. If the breading starts to cook much faster than 1-2 minutes, or if the oil itself begins to smoke, reduce the temperature. If things are burning, reduce the stove heat and remove the pan from heat entirely for a minute or two before returning it to the reduced heat. If the breading takes more than a couple minutes to cook per side, raise the temperature a bit. Do not overfill the skillet while frying. There should be room between the slices so the oil can rise up along the side of the eggplant. In my 12" skillet, I usually cook about five at a time. Be aware that things in the center of the skillet will cook faster than stuff around the edge. Using the color of the breading as your guide, rotate the veggies to get an even cook. If you are substituting chicken, cook the chicken to an internal temperature of 165F.
  7. As you remove eggplant from the frying pan, place it on a large plate with paper towels on it. Stack the slices in sheets, with paper towels between each layer to absorb the excess oil.

Serving

To serve, place things in this order, bottom to top:

  • Angel hair pasta nest
  • Marinara sauce to cover the pasta
  • Eggplant, one or two slices depending on their size
  • Marinara sauce to decorate, not smother, the eggplant
  • Shredded parmesan sprinkled over everything