I love eggplant and enjoy cooking vegetarian dishes; one day I came up with a way to incorporate eggplant to pasta...I cut up eggplant coated it with olive oil, salt pepper then roasted it and tossed it together with simmered tomatoes, basil garlic and pasta, and it was very tasty. Because I love eggplant parmasean, the softness of the eggplant didn't satissfy the toasty crunch I was missing from a traditional eggplant parmesean dish. Eggplant is a difficult vegetable to cook with, because it can get very soggy (when frying, or even sauteeing).
On a different day, I experimented in the kitchen with eggplant, slicing it with my mandoline (creating very thin slices). I salted the eggplant then created an egg batter using 1 egg, 1/4 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of milk. I dipped the eggplant into the batter and pan fried it in olive oil until it reached a very crisp texture. Once the eggplant was finished cooking, I placed it on paper towels to cool down. I used the eggplant to top a spaghetti dish
1 lb of cooked pasta
sauce: 1 large can of crushed tomatoes
tablespoon of olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
fresh basil
salt pepper
breadcrumbs and grated parmesean cheese
sautee the garlic in olive oil until tender, add fresh cracked pepper, crushed tomatoes and kosher salt to taste. Let the sauce simmer on medium for about 20 min, then add fresh chopped (or torn) basil to the sauce. Combine the sauce with the pasta and toss in parmasean cheese. Place in a baking dish and top with eggplant, fresh (or store bought) bread crumbs and parmasean cheese then bake on 400 for about 20 min.
The results are DELICIOUS. I paired my pasta dish with a pinot and a movie for a complete date night. Hope you enjoy!
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