Parmigiana, or Parmigiana di melanzane is a sicilian dish made with aubergine, tomato sauce and cheese. I've had it many times as a veggie option in Italian restaurants and it can vary from melt-in-your mouth burst of flavours to horrible uncooked seedy brinjals in tomato ketchup with plastic cheese. There are hundreds of recipes on the web (including many "authentic Italian family" ones) but it is basically a simple dish where you layer slices of aubergine with tomato sauce and cheese. And like all simple dishes it depends on how good your ingredients are. So, when we got this lovely shiny fat baingan instead of making begun bhaja like a good bangali bou, I decided to go Italian. And after we ate the homemade version of the dish, I wondered why I had never made it before. BTW, according to the wikipedia
The word parmigiana is the italianization of a sicilian dialect word "parmiciana" which means "persian".
1 medium sized aubergine
1 egg
1 cup tomato sauce (I made it at home, but you could use a tin/bottle of your fav pasta sauce)
1/2 cup cheese (recipes give hard cheeses like parmesan, as well as soft ones like mozzarella, I used good old cheddar)
olive oil
a bunch of basil
salt
Slice the aubergine and salt it. Press it and leave it for 30 mins for the water to come out. Pat it dry. Beat an egg and dip the aubergine slices in it and shallow fry in olive oil. Drain. In an oven dish, smear a little tomato sauce at the bottom, put a layer of aubergine slices top with more sauce, cheese and torn basil leaves. Repeat till all the ingredients are used up. Bake at 180 C for 45 minutes (or till the aubergines are soft and the cheese is all melted into a gooey sauce) Serve with a crusty bread and salad.
On the web, there are variations with chicken and other meat but I think this really tastes good with just aubergine.
For the Tomato Sauce (in case you want to make your own):
3 med sized tomatoes
1 small onion, chopped finely
3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped finely.
dried oregano (or Italian seasoning)
olive oil
salt
2-3 tbsps tomato puree
skin the tomatoes (plunge them in boiling water and then in cold water to make the skin come off easily) and chop them finely. In a saucepan, heat about 2-3 tbsps of olive oil. Add onions and garlic and cook till the onions are translucent and the garlic is beginning to brown. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook till it is all a pulpy mush. Add tomato puree and cook some more. Add salt and oregano to taste. If you want a chunky sauce, this is it. Otherwise put in a hand-blender or mixie and blend to a smooth sauce. This is a basic sauce (and the one I used for the above dish) but you can add other flavours (chopped olives, red wine, other herbs, cheese...) and use it for pasta. Or dry it off a bit more and use it for pizzas. It stays happily in the fridge for a week.
No pix because we ate it all up before we thought of it.
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