Paul’s Aubergine Parmigiana
To celebrate Antonella and Richard’s award from the Society of Authors, we had the pleasure of hosting dinner for everyone, including Antonella’s parents who had come over from Puglia to support her. As we live near the British Library where the awards were held and that the timings meant going out was difficult, we thought it would be nice to host everyone. The big question was what to cook that would be appropriate for an award for a translation from Italian, and something that could be made beforehand and heated up for when we got back from the awards? It turns out that one of my and Antonella’s favourite dishes is Aubergine Parmegiana, and that seemed to fit both criteria! The pressure was on to cook Italian food for Italians!
When Richard was doing his year abroad in Florence during his MA in Italian and Spanish, one of his flatmates was an Italian music student who insisted on cooking all the time because English people obviously didn’t know how to and he couldn’t possibly eat anything they made! That sounds like the consequences of stereotyping that I could live with. The upshot of this was that Richard was taught how to cook Italian food authentically. One recipe was for, you guessed it, Aubergine Parmegiana. That was then passed on to me, and after years of stern correction, and subsequent experimentation, I think I’ve got a pretty damn good recipe to share with you now. The secret to the best way to cook it is to reduce the liquid wherever possible. This is achieved through spending time to reduce the tomato sauce until it’s the consistency of porridge, and to squeeze all the whey out of the mozzarella. The one change I make is to grill the aubergines, instead of the traditional frying. This little change I find makes the process much easier, while also being healthier. I make sure to pour a generous amount of olive oil over the aubergines to keep that essential part of the traditional flavour and it helps them to become soft and transparent. The other tip is that most of the salt you need comes from the parmesan cheese, but adding a bit to the tomato sauce is a must!
Serves Four
Timings: Preparation: 5 minutes initially, then cooking the aubergines for 30 minutes while you make the tomato sauce, 10 minutes assembly then 50 minutes cooking again.
Ingredients:
4 medium of 3 large aubergines, sliced into thin slices about ½ cm thick
4 tbsp olive oil
100g Parmesan, grated
300g fresh mozzarella, squeezed and pulled apart by hand
sea salt
For the tomato sauce
4 garlic cloves, crushed
a good splash olive oil
150ml (one full bottle or carton) of passata
1 bunch of fresh basil, leaves removed from the stalks
Method
Preheat oven to a medium-high heat. Slice the aubergines and place them in a large roasting tin, stacked on their side at an angle in lines so they all fit. Drizzle olive oil liberally and evenly over the top. Put in the oven for 20 minutes. Rotate them and drizzle olive oil over them again and put back into the oven for another 20 minutes, or until translucent and slightly crispy in places. In the meantime, start making the tomato sauce.
Heat a medium saucepan on a low-medium heat. Fry the garlic with a little oil until they start cooking, then add the basil leaves and salt and cook until the garlic is soft and the leaves start to wilt. Add the passata, rinsing the bottle or carton with a little cold water from the tap and swirling around and pouring back in to not waste any. Simmer, stirring regularly, for about 25 minutes,, or until the sauce has reduced and thickened.
In a medium-sized roasting tin, drizzle a ladle full of tomato sauce over the bottom of the tin and spread evenly with the ladle. Add a third of the aubergine slices flat to cover the base of the tin, and drizzle and spread another ladle of the tomato sauce on top.
Scatter a third of the mozzarella pieces on the top and sprinkle with a third of the Parmesan. Continue to repeat for the next two layers, making sure to finish with a layer of sauce and cheese.. Bake for 50 minutes, or when it all starts bubbling and the cheese on top starts turning brown.
Serve the hot with a simple salad and nice bread.
This can be made in advance and refrigerated of frozen for later. Any leftovers are delicious cold the next day on toasted sourdough drizzled with olive oil for an indulgent lunch!