La Parmigiana

Today, I want to talk about a thing I really love and one of my favourites pastimes: cooking.

I love cooking. It’s one of the very few occupations in which you can see, smell, touch and taste the results of your efforts. A great dish not only will look, smell, feel and taste great, pleasing four of your five senses, but it’s something you can also share with the people you love.

I dare say I love cooking even more than eating (which is to say something, believe me :P), and even more, I like cooking for the people I care about and make them happy with my creations. 

Now I will share one of my favourite recipes: the Parmigiana.

Parmigiana (despite the name) is a traditional Sicilian dish. This version is one of my favourites for many reasons. 

It’s tasty

It’s cheap

It’s really easy to make

It’s healthy (also, it’s vegetarian)

Alors, what we need is:

2 big Aubergines, sliced (0.5 cm) 

Tomato sauce

1 ball of mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced

Grated parmesan

4 eggs

Basil (the best one is the variety with very small leaves, but do what you can)

Olive oil, salt and pepper (like in any good Sicilian recipe!)

You can make your own tomato sauce or buy it ready made. Making sauce is ridiculously easy. Just take some red plump tomatoes, cut them (eliminating as many seeds as possible) and tip them in a large frying pan on a low fire. You can peel them beforehand or you can just pick the peel as soon as it start to peel off with the heat. While it cooks, squash the tomatoes with a fork, and towards the end add oil, salt, etc… If you don’t like the texture, you can blend it and put it back on the hob to make it as watery or as creamy as you like. While it cooks, you can put a variety of things in the sauce to give it a special flavour. The easiest one would be some fresh basil and a crushed garlic clove. My personal favourite is actually one or two laurel leaves. Other things are oregano, a cinnamon stick or some clove (I would be careful with the last one as it makes it really heavy if you know what I mean).

If you use the ready sauce, you can still put it on the hob for a few minutes with some olive oil, salt and whatever spice you prefer to personalize it.

Now the aubergine. In the original, traditional recipe, you should fry it. This takes forever. If you want to do it (as it’s definitely yummy), you should take a big colander and layer the aubergine slices there with salt, then put something heavy on them and leave the thing there for a couple hours first. This is to get rid of the black water in the aubergines that makes them slightly toxic. After the two hours (ant after having carefully removed all the salt and maybe squeezed the slices a bit), you can finally fry them (ONLY in olive oli!!!!). Long, tiring and very fattening.

In this version, however, you will simply grill the aubergines. Very high fire needed, and the pan should be very hot before you put in the first batch (you can try it by spraying some water on it, if it boils, it’s ready).

When you grill the aubergines there is no need for that bothersome procedure with the salt, you just sprinkle some salt on them while they cook.

So, now we have everything we need. A heap of lovely grilled aubergines, tomato sauce, mozzarella slices, spices. The eggs you have to beat with parmesan (loads of parmesan).

Now you simply have to layer everything in a nice baking dish. Start with a bit of oil and tomato sauce (a BIT), then the first layer of aubergines.

Then tomato sauce and basil.

Then the beaten eggs.

And you go on like that. You have to put the mozzarella in the middle (after two layers I would say), but that really is optional. You can make a perfectly lovely Parmigiana without mozzarella. The only very important thing is to finish off with a layer of eggs. It’s also better to season a bit every other layer.

Then you put it in the oven (medium heat), until the eggs are all cooked, shiny and golden. 

Parmigiana is best eaten the day after you make it - or if you can’t wait, make it in the morning for the evening, but eat it cold anyway.

Happy cooking!

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