Would you believe that I'd never cooked a parmigiana before? I feel a little embarrassed admitting this but, now that I have cooked one, I don't mind saying as much. If there's something that will put a smile on your face in the winter months, it's got to be a decent parmigiana. This one was adapted from a recipe in a present my brother Matt and his fiancee Rachael gave me, the Pizza Pilgrims book (full source at the bottom), although I'm told by Ri Willoughby that another amazing version can be found on the Guardian's 'How to cook the perfect...' website. This recipe serves 4 -6, depending on how much you want to gobble down and enjoy. It lasted me three sittings only (remains can be seen in the pic).
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3 large aubergines
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1 tbsp red wine vinegar (or red wine for a richer flavour)
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Olive oil
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Pinch of caster sugar
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1 onion, finely chopped
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Handful of basil leaves
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1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
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3 handfuls of grated parmesan
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1 celery stalk, finely chopped
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125g mozzarella, cut into bite-sized pieces
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2 tins chopped tomatoes
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Pre-heat the oven to 200ᵒC and top and tail your
aubergines. Now slice into rounds about 5mm thick. There’s no need to skin
them. When skinned it gets a bit too sloppy.
Brush the aubergine slices with oil and season with salt and
pepper – use a griddle pan to get the ‘charred marks’ on them; this is also
better than cooking in a normal pan where the aubergines will just soak up
litres of oil if you let them. Well, maybe not litres, but you get the idea.
Griddle the slices until they’ve got a good colour and are soft, then set
aside.
In a large pan, soften the onion, garlic, and celery in a
couple of tbp of oil. Do this on a low heat for up to 10 minutes. Add the
tomatoes, red wine vinegar (or red wine)
and simmer for 10 minutes to bring the flavours together. Season and add basil.
I couldn’t get hold of basil so just left it out. The final thing was still
very tasty, though.
Now we can put the parmigiana together. Put a thin layer of
the tomato sauce on the bottom of a pie/gratin dish, sprinkle over some
parmesan, then some mozzarella (just dot some around), some pepper and then a
layer of the aubergine slices. Repeat this process until you’ve used all your
ingredients. If you’re lucky you’ll have enough for another small dish. Drizzle
a little oil over the top and then pop in the oven for 30 minutes.
Today’s learning:
You don’t need to salt aubergines to draw the bitterness out – the bitterness has long since been bred out of them. You can also bake the aubergines before cooking them, but griddling them is better. Brushing with oil and putting in a griddle pan will use far less oil than putting oil in a normal frying pan and cooking them that way.
Recipe adapted from: Elliot, J. & Elliot, T. (2013) Pizza Pilgrims. London: Harpercollins
It looks delicious but, as a native of Napoli, I need to point out that what people in Naples consider "the true recipe" for parmigiana di melanzane is slightly different. Jamie Oliver says it's a northern Italian recipe but, in fact, it's a recipe from the south. Some believe the word parmigiana comes from the Sicilian word parmiciana, which refers to the overlapping wood strips on the shutters. The first recipe for parmigiana however, is found in the treatise Il Cuoco Galante by Vincenzo Corrado: apparently, it was a dish served to the aristocratic families in Naples during the 18th and 19th century, but it did not include aubergines. The first documented recipe for parmigiana (cooked with aubergines) is found in Ippolito Cavalcanti's "Cucina teorico pratica " (1839 ) :)
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