Eggplant Parmesan — Classic Parmigiana di Melanzane

Transcript

Speaker: Mamma mia! It is six in the evening in Naples, the windows are open, and the smell of layered eggplant, San Marzano sauce and bubbling mozzarella is filling every kitchen on the street. Tonight on the show: classic Parmigiana di Melanzane — golden fried eggplant, sweet tomato sauce, oozing fresh mozzarella, fistfuls of Parmigiano-Reggiano, and torn basil, baked until the top is bronzed and crackling. With me — our master chef from a trattoria in Spaccanapoli, Naples, and our sous-chef from Palermo, Sicily, who will absolutely insist Parmigiana belongs to her island. Let us cook.

Speaker: Allora, listen — first, the eggplant, because here is where home cooks lose. Take two large globe eggplants, about nine hundred grams or two pounds total. Slice them lengthwise into rounds of six millimetres, that is one-quarter inch. Lay them flat on a tray, salt them generously with one tablespoon of kosher salt, and let them sweat for thirty minutes. Then press them dry with paper towels. This pulls out the bitter water — skip it and your dish goes mushy. Trust me, in nineteen seventy-nine my nonna would smack my hand if I skipped this step.

Speaker: Ah, certo — now the breading station, three shallow bowls. Bowl one: one cup, that is one hundred twenty grams, of all-purpose flour. Bowl two: three large eggs beaten with two tablespoons of cold water. Bowl three: two cups, two hundred grams, of fine Italian breadcrumbs mixed with thirty grams of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and a teaspoon of dried oregano. Dredge each eggplant slice flour, egg, breadcrumbs, pressing the crumb on firmly. In Palermo we always add the Parmigiano to the breadcrumb — it makes the crust golden.

Speaker: Now we fry. Pour one inch — two and a half centimetres — of mild olive oil into a heavy pan. Heat it to one hundred seventy-five degrees Celsius, three hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Use a thermometer, do not guess. Fry the breaded eggplant in batches for two minutes per side until deep gold, then transfer onto a paper-towel-lined tray. Salt lightly the second they come out. Do not crowd the pan or the oil drops below temperature and they turn greasy. Patience. Esatto.

Speaker: While the eggplant rests, the sauce. In a saucepan, warm three tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat. Add three cloves of garlic, finely sliced, cook one minute until fragrant. Pour in one twenty-eight-ounce can — about eight hundred grams — of whole San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand. Add one teaspoon of fine sea salt, half a teaspoon of sugar, and a small handful of fresh basil. Simmer uncovered for twenty minutes until thickened. Taste and adjust salt. In Sicily we sometimes add a pinch of red pepper flakes — your call.

Speaker: Preheat the oven to one hundred ninety degrees Celsius, three hundred seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. Now we layer. In a nine-by-thirteen inch ceramic baking dish, spoon a thin layer of sauce on the bottom. Lay one row of fried eggplant, then top with one cup of San Marzano sauce, four ounces — one hundred fifteen grams — of fresh mozzarella torn by hand, twenty grams of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and a few torn fresh basil leaves. Repeat the layers exactly three times. Finish the top with sauce, the last mozzarella, and an extra-generous shower of Parmigiano.

Speaker: Into the oven on the middle rack at one hundred ninety degrees Celsius, three hundred seventy-five Fahrenheit, for thirty-five to forty minutes. You want the top deeply bronzed and the sauce bubbling vigorously around the edges. Here is the rule cooks always break — pull it out and let it rest, uncovered, for at least fifteen minutes. Beddu, this is critical. Cutting too soon and the layers slide apart in a hot puddle. Resting lets the sauce and cheese set so each square comes out clean, structured, and beautiful.

Speaker: Serve it warm, never piping hot — about sixty degrees Celsius, one hundred forty Fahrenheit on the plate, that is the perfect Italian temperature. Cut a generous square, lift it with a wide spatula, and let some of the warm sauce pool around it on a rustic ceramic plate. Top with one fresh basil leaf and one final pinch of Parmigiano. Drink with it: a light, dry red — a Chianti Classico, an Aglianico from Campania, or a Sicilian Nero d'Avola if our sous-chef is buying. Finish with espresso and a piece of crusty bread to mop the plate. Madonna, che bontà.

Speaker: Che bontà! Three quick takeaways. First — salt and sweat the eggplant for thirty minutes, fry it in oil at three hundred fifty Fahrenheit, one seventy-five Celsius, for two minutes a side. Second — layer it three times in a nine-by-thirteen dish, sauce-eggplant-mozzarella-Parmigiano-basil, then bake at three hundred seventy-five Fahrenheit, one ninety Celsius, for thirty-five to forty minutes. Third — REST it fifteen minutes before cutting or it slides apart. Grazie mille to our master chef from Naples and our sous-chef from Palermo. Buon appetito — go cook.