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Saturday, July 21, 2012

Eggplant Parmesan

It's hard to get my Dad to approve any healified Italian dish... or really anything he's not used to because he loves and is prided in his traditional way, so after much voiced skepticism while making this, many attempts to make me do it a different way, plenty of Italian slang & hand gestures thrown my way and a few head tilted shakes and shoulder shrugs... I got his stamp of approval "no BS". If he approves of it, it has to be good:) He said there's no difference in taste to the old school version, so that's a win in my mission to tastefully healify comfort foods! MANGIA!!!



what you'll need:
1 medium eggplant 
(doesn't need to be organic, clean 15!)
blanched almond flour 
(4-6 cups, not sure how much I used I buy in bulk
 online and dumped out to bread, don't need to be
too specific about how much, just make sure you 
have enough to batter all of your eggplant)
6 organic eggs
1 can of organic grated parmesan cheese
4 cups organic whole milk mozzarella
dried parsley
garlic powder
onion power
sea salt
pepper
(all to taste)
olive or grapeseed oil
sauce (home made if you're italian, this if you want to be http://whatwouldjanessado.blogspot.com/2011/09/like-nanas-homemade-sauce-meatballs.html, and jared if you're american)


what to do:
Slice eggplant very thin with a sharp knife. Sprinkle with salt and allow to dry out for 10-15 minutes. Whip together eggs together and add in about 4 oz of parmesan cheese, a little garlic salt and parsley in a medium size shallow dish. In another shallow dish, pour in about 2-3 cups of blanched almond flour and sprinkle with plenty of garlic powder, dried parsley, onion powder, sea salt & pepper and blend together. Sorry I didn't record measurements, rough guess... about 2tbs garlic powder, 1tbs onion powder, 3tbs dried parsley flakes, 2TSP of both sea salt and pepper per 2 cups but you can give or take what you feel it needs and taste test it. I had to refill this a few times, you may need to as well. Grease 1-2 cookie sheets with olive oil or grapseed oil. Dip eggplant in egg batter, then bread it on both sides and lay it on the cookie sheet. Once all have been battered, broil on high until it becomes slightly brown and crispy. In an 8x12 baking dish, layer of sauce, sprinkle parmesan cheese on top, then add eggplant on top of that just slightly overlapping each other, another layer of sauce, another layer of sprinkled parm, shredded or sliced whole milk mozerella, repeat for 2-3 layers. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for an hour. Don't skip the aluminum foil, NaNa's orders ;)