How to Make Eggplant Parmigiana

Male: So we finally made it into someone’s home, no, I didn’t break in, I was invited and Joanne is here with us and she is going to teach us how to make some eggplant parmigiana. Joanne: So the first thing you do with an eggplant is you cut the top off and then I take a peeler and I peel the eggplant. So then what I do is I cut the eggplant and then you salt it. Male: And we’re doing this because—? Joanne: The salt takes the moisture out of the eggplant because eggplant can be very mushy, it holds water. When all the moisture is out, maybe about two hours and then it’s ready and set for us to do the next step. We’re going to take the eggplant, stick it on paper towels and— Male: Is this just to push more of the moisture out? Joanne: Exactly. It’s just so the moisture has some place to go and as you can see, the eggplant is giving up the water. Now we’re ready for the crucial step of frying the eggplant. We have to wait until this really heats up. You take the eggplant, dip it in the flour, dip it in the egg, pus it in here and make sure that it’s coated and then you stick it on here. You do this a couple of times and see this is ready to flip. Male: That looks delicious. Joanne: It’s a little crusty. You can’t get the oil too hot because then it starts to burn. These are done and you know you take another piece of paper towel, lots of paper towels in this dish and get the excess oil off. Male: This works a lot like lasagna at this point. Joanne: Totally, it’s going to be a layered dish, absolutely. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to take the eggplant, they can overlap a little bit. I bought fresh ricotta cheese to my local little Italian restaurant. Okay, so then, we’ll I like doing stuff that is not so slicey you know just tear it apart. You’re into the sauce and you’re doing a good thing. Male: Thank you. Joanne: You can really layer it and fill in here. Male: Okay, good. Joanne: And a half hour, that’s going to be ready to dig in. You don’t want to serve cold eggplant; you don’t want the inside of the eggplant parmigiana to be cold and the outer edges to be hot. So take a knife and you stick it in here and you leave it there for about five seconds and then you, very carefully. Now, it’s warm but not boiling hot and I would say another five minutes. Male: The eggplant parmigiana is finally done. How long has it been? Joanne: About 40 minutes. Male: And it’s ready to take out. Joanne: It’s ready to take out. Here you go, the final product. Male: Thank you very much. I’m very, very excited, the eggplant parmigiana. That’s yours. I got that for you. Male: Thank you. It’s going to be really good. Joanne: Okay, could you take a bigger piece. Male: Delicious sweetheart, it’s just fantastic, thank you. Male: Yeah, no problem.