This is essentially a recipe for Eggplant Parmesan but I’m open to whatever the garden (or my lovely CSA, i.e. someone else’s garden) brings me. It is not fried (but you can do whatever you like) or a massive hassle. And it uses up old bread or the cracker bits left in the bottom of our cracker jar.
It took me forever to like eggplant. It wasn’t a vegetable I grew up with at all and then when I did try it I was likely a budding teen who (like ours) was not sure about such things. What I found, as an adult (and I was really an adult by the time I found eggplant to my liking — in my late 30’s), was that I didn’t care for Italian eggplant so much. Y’know, the large bulbous spongy guy that we were all instructed to slice thick and salt heavily…but there is a whole world of beautiful eggplants out there with no such rules: green-apple colored and sized ones, small persimmon colored Turkish eggplants, long thin white or purple, short squat and striped, midnight colored ones with the shape of a giant heirloom tomato, lavender and pinkish purple small globes, etc. Though I have found that Italian eggplant is not the end of the world anymore either. Most of the time I want any of them to be sliced thin, brushed with olive oil and salt, and roasted until crispy on the edges. Maybe one or two of them want to be in a ripe Ratatouille, slow roasted over a live fire or sauteed in a Caponata. Maybe even a few want to be roasted and then mashed into Baba Ghanoush with tahini and sumac — but not today!
On this day, they want to be breaded, baked, topped with cheese and spread out onto linguine with some red gravy. However, they are not the only goodies who would work well with this — zucchini/yellow squash, cauliflower, tofu, chicken or pork cutlets (or even beef patties) all sound scrumptious. Maybe you’ll come up with other things, too!
Rock Bottom Parmesan Pasta
Serves 4-6
1 lb Eggplant (of your choice, or zucchini, cauli, tofu, meat, etc) sliced 1/4″ thick
2 Large Eggs (broken and whisked in a pie plate or deep plate), add a little salt
1.5 cups AP Flour (alternatively use GF Flour, or a 3:1 combination of Brown Rice Flour and Tapioca/Cassava Flour or Arrowroot Powder), a sprinkling of salt (in a wide plate)
2 cups Breadcrumbs or Cracker Crumbs (our sourdough crackers make a nice crispy crust) (in a wide plate) + 1 Tbsp Italian Dried Herbs (oregano, basil, marjoram, etc)
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
1 lb Pasta of choice (we used Linguine this time but whatever you like is best)
1 Jar of favorite Pasta sauce or whip it up homemade (my Italian step-grandmother just groaned, as if you could ‘whip up’ gravy)
8 oz. Fresh Mozzarella (we used Narrangansett Creamery sliced mozzarella, already perfect size!)
1 cup Shredded Parmesan
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. On a sheet tray drizzle olive oil all over. Start pasta water.
Take each slice of Eggplant and dust with the AP flour, then dip in Egg, then coat in Breadcrumbs and place on the sheet tray with the olive oil. Continue until all slices have been floured/egged/crumbed. And bake them until they are crispy and brown, flipping them halfway through baking (about 20 minutes total). When they are done baking, top with mozzarella slices and turn off oven, letting it melt on them in the residual heat.
Meanwhile, cook pasta and pasta sauce as per directions (or usual).
Plate as preferred (D likes hers ‘deconstructed’ with everything separate while we generally like our pasta tossed with the sauce) adding the mozzarella melted eggplants, and a smattering of Parmesan cheese to taste. Enjoy!
To up the ante: * add parmesan to your breadcrumb mixture, * add spinach or shredded kale/chard to pasta water while cooking pasta, * layer a shaped pasta like penne (cooked just under al dente) into a casserole dish with sauce, cheese, and baked-breaded vegetables, top with cheese and foil and bake for another 15 minutes until bubbly and hot
Rock Bottom Homestead 