eggplant parmigiana

On New Year's Eve we went to Brad and Barbara's where two of Barbara's friends from Italy were visiting and made an Eggplant Parmigiana that entered my dreams for weeks to follow. I read lots of recipes with different techniques to try and perfect my own version. I combined a few different ones to land on the following which I have made almost a dozen times since NYE. After Chicken Tortilla Soup this is next highest meal in our dinner rotation.

2 cups Nunny's Tomato Sauce

1 large eggplant, sliced (ends removed)

1 ball fresh mozzarella, sliced

Italian style bread crumbs

freshly grated parmesan

olive oil

salt

slice your eggplant into roughly 1/2 inch pieces. lay them on a cooling rack over a baking sheet and sprinkle generously with salt. After an half an hour to an hour flip and salt the other side. Wait another half an hour to an hour til both sides have released their moisture (the eggplant will start to sweat).

fill a small bowl with one part bread crumbs and one part grated parmesan. I always just eye ball this step but you are welcome to measure it out if you prefer. 1 cup of each should suffice.

dip your wet (from the salt) eggplant slices into the bread crumb mixture on both sides. Repeat until all pieces are coated. Place coated slices on a dry baking dish and drizzle with olive oil. bake at 400 for 15 minutes, flip all slices, then continue baking for 15 minutes more. remove from oven.

In a square baking dish layer pasta sauce then eggplant then a little more sauce then mozzarella until you run out of ingredients. Top layer should be mozzarella. Do not make the layers too wet. You might have leftover sauce.

Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until the cheese on top begins to brown.