2011 Cooking Club Week 9: Parmigiana di Melanzane (Aubergine Bake)

Beanstalk

Parmigiana di Melanzane
Serves 4-5

This is a fairly authentic Italian recipe given to me by a guy from Naples. It's simple but very tasty! Although it's lovely when eaten right away, if you leave it sitting in the oven after its cooked until the next day (then heat it up) its even better! The aubergine and mozzarella are a great substitute for meat.

Ingredients:

1 + 1/2 large aubergines
2 Balls Mozzarella
A good handful of parmesan (freshly grated)
Some vegetable oil
Basil
Passatta (bout 1.5. litres)
1 Onion
2 Garlic Cloves
Salt and Pepper



First start your tomato sauce. Finely chop the onion and garlic and fry in pot until soft with a wee bit of salt. Add in your passata and basil leaves and simmer until thick. The thicker the better. (this is important, it should take about 40mins).



Next heat up the vegtable oil and chop up the aubergines. Lay the chopped aubergines out on a tray or colander and rub the sides with salt and let sit so all the moisture gets drawn out (this takes away the bitterness from the aubergines).



Next deep fry your aubergines until golden brown and then dry them on layers of tissue paper.

When your sauce is good and thick, turn on the oven to 180 and get out a deep oven dish. Layer sauce first, then aubergines, then mozarella, then parmesan and repeat the process until you run out but make sure you finish with a layer of tomato sauce with mozarella on top:



put the dish in the oven for 20mins at 180 until all the mozzarella melts:



Dish it out when cooked or leave it in the oven to rest until the next day. Thats when the flavours really blend and its gets really amazing! If you want serve with green beans and croquettes or roast potatoes.

pickarooney

I love this, although it's a bit early in the year for aubergines. I'd recommend slicing/salting the aubergines before starting the sauce though so you're not waiting for them to sweat.

January

Ohhh this looks yum

Malari

Any alternative to deep-frying the aubergines? I don't deep-fry :cool::p

Don't know if I'd have this as a main meal, but looks like an interesting veggie side for a change.

Beanstalk

yes, slice thinly and shallow fry in oil, or rub with oil and grill although they don't go soft enough in the grill method.

diddlybit

Been meaning to try something like this for ages, so I'm going to give this a go in order to salvage some semblence of a relationship between myself and Aubergines.

If it doesn't work, and I still think they are a horrid, leather-like food substance, we are done. No matter what the veggie websites say...adios aubergine.

Looks tasty, it may convert me.

Beanstalk

diddlybit wrote: »

Been meaning to try something like this for ages, so I'm going to give this a go in order to salvage some semblence of a relationship between myself and Aubergines.

If it doesn't work, and I still think they are a horrid, leather-like food substance, we are done. No matter what the veggie websites say...adios aubergine.

Looks tasty, it may convert me.

be sure to let us know how it turns out. you can get nice big aubergines in lidl if they are near you? but just make sure you salt them, they can be bitter this time of year.

Mellor

Looks good, shame I don't eat aubergines

pickarooney

Aubergines are the food of the gods. They're leathery in the same way fillet steak is leathery - just cook them properly!

Lornen

Saw this annoying woman on Come Dine With Me cook this and it looked bangin'. Will have to give it a go although not an eggplant fan, I recently had some on crostini over the weekend and if I can eat the buggers cold, I'm sure I can eat it covered in cheese and tomato! :pac:


Also, would you suggest cooking this dish, then allowing it to sit over night, then reheating and eating, or did you mean construct the dish and allow to sit, then bake until the cheese has melted?

Beanstalk

Lornen wrote: »

Also, would you suggest cooking this dish, then allowing it to sit over night, then reheating and eating, or did you mean construct the dish and allow to sit, then bake until the cheese has melted?

Cook the dish first until the cheese is melted then reheat it the next day. I just leave it sitting in the sealed oven but of course you could refrigerate it. There's nothing wrong with eating just after cooking either though, in fact it's very hard to resist! You can always have the leftovers the next day!

BaZmO*

I've seen this made on TV quite a few times and always wanted to make it. Made it tonight and it was lovely.

Fried the Aubergines in a frying pan as I didn't want the hassle of deep frying them, and it worked out lovely. Had it with some mangetout and some "potato cakes" (fell to bits in the pan) made from some left over mash from last night.

Beautiful as it was I think the textures were all too gooey. (Maybe I used too much sauce?) It needed something with a bit more of a bite as an accompaniment, so I think I'll have roasted potato cubes with the leftovers tomorrow night. But that said, it was still a beautiful dish. Thanks OP

Lornen

BaZmO* wrote: »

I've seen this made on TV quite a few times and always wanted to make it. Made it tonight and it was lovely.

Fried the Aubergines in a fry pan as I didn't want the hassle of deep frying them, and it worked out lovely. Had it with some mangetout and some "potato cakes" (fell to bits in the pan) made from some left over mash from last night.

Beautiful as it was I think the textures were all too gooey. (Maybe I used too much sauce?) It needed something with a bit more of a bite as an accompaniment, so I think I'll have roasted potato cubes with the leftovers tomorrow night. But that said, it was still a beautiful dish. Thanks OP

Stunning picture, definitely giving it a bash now!

Beanstalk

BaZmO* wrote: »

I've seen this made on TV quite a few times and always wanted to make it. Made it tonight and it was lovely.

Fried the Aubergines in a frying pan as I didn't want the hassle of deep frying them, and it worked out lovely. Had it with some mangetout and some "potato cakes" (fell to bits in the pan) made from some left over mash from last night.

Beautiful as it was I think the textures were all too gooey. (Maybe I used too much sauce?) It needed something with a bit more of a bite as an accompaniment, so I think I'll have roasted potato cubes with the leftovers tomorrow night. But that said, it was still a beautiful dish. Thanks OP

Wow! that looks amazing, you've put my pictures to shame! and i'm glad it worked out well from pan frying, and roasted potato cubes are a great idea, with garlic hmmm...you will love it tomorrow btw!

BaZmO*

Had the leftovers the next day with potato cubes roasted with garlic cloves and chilli flakes and it was beautiful. The textures really worked well together. Even though the sauce thickened the next day I still think I used too much sauce when putting the dish together, something I'll reduce the next time I'm making it.

unkel

I had been looking forward to making this and today was the day. Glorious! Will for sure be making this again. Usually have all the ingredients in the house, will just have to buy more aubergines

Had the dish with some toasted pitta bread to scoop up the sauce

Sorry had to eat before I took the picture



I'd recommend anyone panfrying the aubergine (like I did) to be careful with the heat setting (medium heat at most) and to use plenty of oil

unkel

I hope it's not sacrilegious to the original Italian recipe, but I made it again today adding layers of parboiled lasagna sheets. Turned out great, the pasta sheets gave it strength and structure while adding in some useful carbs :cool:

Had it with garlic bread

diddlybit

Was planning to make this tonight but in the supermarket, there was only three of the saddest, most wrinkled aubergines I'd ever seen. :mad: (Tescos is evil.) Will hopefully be more organised tomorrow and find some ones in better nick. All the photos look nommy.

Little Alex

diddlybit wrote: »

Been meaning to try something like this for ages, so I'm going to give this a go in order to salvage some semblence of a relationship between myself and Aubergines.

If it doesn't work, and I still think they are a horrid, leather-like food substance, we are done. No matter what the veggie websites say...adios aubergine.

Looks tasty, it may convert me.

pickarooney wrote: »

Aubergines are the food of the gods. They're leathery in the same way fillet steak is leathery - just cook them properly!

I was really surprised at how "soft" they were. Seriously, they were like eating candyfloss. Given that they were quite golden I thought they would go crunchy after cooling down, but they stayed really, really soft!

Anyway, I made this this evening and thought it was lovely, Beanstalk. Well done!

BaZmO*

Ooh great idea Alex, making them in individual portions.

Malari

I started off trying this dish as a side, but as I have a pure carnivore to feed also (and I'm not talking about my cat!) I ended up adding bits of pancetta and some chicken pieces and it turned into a main. I still managed to have slices of aubergine surreptitiously added to my plate throughout the meal :rolleyes:

I liked it, I have to say, and will be making it again for ME alone! It does get a bit smokey in the kitchen when I fry the aubergine, so I don't think it will be a regular.

Mellor

Mellor wrote: »

Looks good, shame I don't eat aubergines

So decided to give aubergine another go recently and liked it, was just simply oiled and roasted. Turns out the first time I tried it was just a terrible dish.

So next up was to give this recipe a bash. In the oven right now.

meoklmrk91

Made this this evening, just finished, I really enjoyed it, it was my first time, I am ashamed to say, making from scratch tomato sauce. It was fun to make, think I will grill the Aubergine next time as frying it was annoying. Massive amount of food for really cheap, ill be having it again tomorrow.

Malari

I love this dish! Made it again at the weekend, and it was eaten eagerly by BOTH of us I didn't have a lot of aubergine left so I layered some courgette in there too.

Also the base of the tomato sauce is similar to the Italian sausage pasta in this week's Club recipe so I made some of that to go with it.

Roald Dahl

We made this lovely recipe for dinner.

It's really tasty and easy to make!

Thank you, Beanstalk!



Nice to see your photos have survived all the years since posting. Nostalgia for Nostia... it's all Freshona these days!

Beanstalk

Looks perfect, pine nuts a nice addition!