Eggplant Parmagiana

I made this recipe a couple of week's ago and it's probably the tastiest eggplant dish we've ever had the pleasure of consuming. There is a catch though. You need to have patience to individually flour/egg & crumb each slice of eggplant before you can start assembling what is essentially an easy, pasta-free, cheese-sauce-free eggplant lasagne. Trust me, it's sooo worth it. Another difficult thing for me was refraining from eating the panko-crumbed eggplant before layering them in my new lasagne dish. It made me vow to make panko-crumbed eggplant in future.. on its own as a sidedish or a main with some accompanying, good quality tomato and capsicum relish.

I have Matt Moran to thank for the inspiration. Matt is currently appearing on Junior Masterchef... is anyone else tuning in? He posted an eggplant parmagiana recipe in Masterchef magazine and it's his recipe that I've adapted to our tastes. I made the tomato sauce sweeter, used less capers, used baby bocconcini instead of buffalo mozzarella (which is harder to source around my parts and costs the earth).. I also changed some quantities too. It might be easier & cheaper to buy a bag of shredded mozarella instead of slicing all those little balls of bocconcini, but you'll get an oilier result. I appreciated that particular tip from Matt and it's true.. using the fresh little balls of bocconcini does keep the eggplant parmagiana 'light'. Another tip (which comes from me), is have a big roll or two of paper towels handy. I only used a small amount of oil when browning the panko-crumbed eggplant slices, but I still used lots of paper towels to pat-down each slice (top and bottom) afterwards to drain them of as much oil as possible. Matt said "drain on papertowel"..but I always lend a helping hand. Be careful not to destroy your panko crumb..but it is possible to get more oil from a piece of fried eggplant by the press-and-pat-it-down method. Again, this contributed to the 'light' parmagiana result.

On a more personal slant, sorry my foodie peeps for not giving you a recipe last week. Truth be known, I've struggled to blog even this for you today. I had the flu for 3 weeks which seemed to be replaced by a cough that wouldn't go away. I went to my GP because cough medicine wasn't working. He told me there are some nasty bugs going around and I could expect to cough for up to 12 weeks! Two days later I had the flu again.. (I could hardly believe it.. I think I wept) .. and that was 10 days ago and I'm still sick. I don't cough all day, but I have bouts of serious coughing...and I've used about 10 boxes of tissues, just for me this past month. I know, because I buy the tissues. I couldn't go to church on Sunday, I had no energy, yet the day before I made an effort to get out and I went to town and then we had sushi for dinner and saw a movie. Maybe that's why I crashed the next day? I was so fed up with being house-bound, I was getting very stir crazy. I had increased energy on Saturday, so I went out..and I even enjoyed a most delicious hotdog for lunch. Not the healthiest choice, but no amount of fruit or vegies seems to help my condition at the moment.

I'm taking a variety of supplements.. my most recent one being 'Supergreen's'. I've never been stuck with flu symptoms for this long, ever in my life. It feels like I'll never be well. But I have to remain positive.. despite feeling physically miserable and despite receiving bad news last week too. My daughter is stunned that after all of this time.. it's been over a month now.. that I can just keep on blowing my nose like there's no end to it. I'm stunned too. So anyway, I'm making the effort to blog this recipe and turn up for my radio segment because I don't want to let anyone down and I also don't like being disconnected from the routine of it. It would be so easy to fall into a 'woe is me' rut right now. All I can do is keep praying and I hope that by this time next week.. I'll be flu-free! But in conclusion, I also hope someone out there is blessed and inspired to crumb some eggplant. I always appreciate inspiration and so I just want to pass it on. Tried and tested.
Eggplant Parmagiana

-4 cans of diced tomatoes (400gm each)
-200 gram bag of panko crumbs (Japanese style breadcrumbs, don't substitute for ordinary breadcrumbs which will give a 'heavier' result & absorb more oil)
-3 cloves of garlic, crushed/minced
-4 large eggplants (sliced thinly, not more than 1cm thick per slice)
-6 eggs, beaten in a bowl
-1 little bucket of baby bocconcini (around 400 grams), each ball, sliced into 4 or 5 slices
-1 large onion, sliced
-1.5 tablespoon's red wine vinegar
-1 cup of plain flour
-1 tablespoon baby capers (drained)
-1 pinch of dried chilli flakes
-1/2 cup of shredded parmesan (I don't use the powdery parmesan for this recipe, instead I pick up a bag of pre-shredded, refrigerated parmesan)
-pinch of salt & some white pepper
-2 tablespoon's of caster sugar
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-Wash, dry and slice eggplant (discard the rounded edges of the eggplant, you want flat slices)
-Prepare a dish of flour, a bowl with beaten eggs and also a bowl with panko crumbs
-Firstly, flour every slice of eggplant
-Once all eggplant slices are floured, dip each one into egg, then stand vertically in panko crumb bowl and gently throw some panko crumbs all over the eggy slice.. this will keep the crumb 'light', you don't need every inch of the eggplant covered (refer to blog photo's )
-Don't discard crumbs because you'll need the leftover crumbs later for the topping
-Once you have enough crumbed enough eggplant slices to fill your frypan or frypan's, heat about a couple of tablespoon's of oil (in each pan) and gently brown both sides of the crumbed eggplant
-I had two frypan's and I could fit four slices in one pan and two in the other, so I could do six slices at a time.. When your first slices are frying, continue to crumb the rest of your eggplant
-After eggplant is golden on both sides, drain on papertowel (I envelope the slice in towelling) and press down lightly as if to 'pat dry', this will remove excess oil, then sprinkle over a little seasalt to season the slices
-Preheat your oven to 200 degree's celcius
-To make tomato sauce, fry sliced onion until soft and just going brown, then add garlic and chilli flakes and fry another minute before adding tins of diced tomatoes, red wine vinegar and baby capers
-Simmer tomato sauce for about 20 to 30 minutes, add a pinch of salt, a little white pepper and the caster sugar
-In a large lasagne dish, scatter a few scoops of tomato sauce evenly over the base and layer some eggplant slices over the top
-Add more tomato sauce over the first eggplant layer and then top that with slices of baby bocconcini
-Layer more prepared eggplant over the top, then more sauce and more bocconcini
-Your final layer will be a crumb topping that goes on top of sauce and bocconcini
-For the crumb topping, combine parmesan cheese and your leftover panko crumbs together in a bowl, then scatter all over the top of the finished eggplant parmagiana
-Bake in a preheated 200 degree oven for around 45 minute's to an hour
-I divided the parmagiana into 6, square portions using a sharp knife
-We ate this on its own but you can add a salad if you wish

Throw the crumbs around the eggy eggplant slices.

Ready to fry.

This would be a meal for me, just as it is. Panko-crumbed eggplant. So tasty.Labour of love.

Ready for the final slice of eggplant before the 'topping' sauce, cheese and crumbs go on.