How To Make Eggplant Parmesan

good morning welcome to Escoffier online my name is chef sister today I want to be preparing some eggplant this is someone I don't eggplant parmigiana by the way and now this consider fruit the name of that we use is eggplant but they're also called upper kind up in England they don't also they're known as melon gene guardian egg or Guinness question do you have I know there's different kinds there is a Japanese which risk long and skinny with a light purple white eggplants and we're going to start by you know preparing this a eggplant this has a little bitter taste but I'm going to show you a way to do them they take some of the bitterness away also when you prime it's going to help to you know absorb less oil than normally so I'm going to start with peeling the eggplants cut the top off and when you go buy these eggplants make sure you pick the ones are nice and shiny and don't have any wrinkles or like brown spots when they have brown spots they means they're old and they like kind of mush inside they started tone brown so you want to get the ones really nice and from there like you can press them down they don't like give up so they're nice and firm that it's a means are nice and fresh so we're going to cut copy bottom and we're going to peel them you know you can also do this in the grill or a bacon and I this is a good ingredient for ready Julie I mean there's so many different ways that you can make eggplant see if you don't the right way they have a nice a nice flavor and the old days they used to be served as a side dish with like other bleep dishes for example veal or chicken and especially Italian cuisine nowadays you can find them you know just by themselves so they make it meal by themselves and they're really good for those people they're like vegetarians you know you can don't grill like to an eggplant parmigiana like my two right now and they're really nice they're really tasty so we're going to peel them really good okay as you can see they started to brown right away you know the oxidation starts to set in and now we want to slice them in the bow you know half an inch slices you can also slice them the long way thin slices and layer like a lasagna but you know we do lasagna but we roll it up we're going to slice in the little wheels you know like a pie half an inch thick we're gonna you know bread them and fry them okay you can see they start to oxidize right away that don't Brown so we're going to soak them in some soul water this is called the Goergen what it does it helps soften the vegetables I also take some deterrence away like I said before it takes uh some of the oil let's not absorb this much much while you're frying so when I put some sugar product a tablespoon of sugar some sea salt you can also just lay them down in a sheet pan and sprinkle some salt and both sides and you can live them therefore by half an hour you're going to see little like a little water droplets when they come back to them because it's going to absorb some of the you know as abstraction with the water from the vegetables and I'm gonna put some cold water in here and we're going to soak them for about ten minutes before you're starting off breading them okay I already have some that did ahead of time so they label don't waste any time so we wanted to solve the water district sorry the salt and water right here then we want to submerge the slices in here and like I said before this is called the Goergen that it helps you know to soften the vegetables and take some of the bitter taste away from them see it nice slices they have a lot of seats in the Senate but this get nice and soft when you cook them so don't worry about that it's the way they are and it's really easy to work with eggplant there's like a zucchini but again they really tasted they taste a little bit different okay I'm going to put this aside now I'm going to show the ones that I have already not soaking and liquid over here as you can see that liquid looks a little brownish so we're going to drain all this water from here and then we're going to bread you know this'n bredren well I believe we have a question one of your students the question was why do you have to peel the eggplant focus that you don't have to peel it but it's nice because the skins are kind of tough if you're going to grill it I will relieve the skins on just slicing but since you got to do a parmesan you know because once you you bread them like this you don't want to be peeling the skins off when you cook them so you don't have to peel them if you don't want to but you know I like to do this because that way you can eat the whole thing and it's less messy to eat but if you're going to grill them like I send a flat and the grill you can leave the skin kind of helps to keep the shape together don't break up this easy now they will have the eggplant in oil drain we want to kind of dry it off some of the excess liquid so I'm going to take some paper towels laying in my cutting board before I start writing them okay put them in here okay get all the whole here then I'm on that got another piece which is uh Wiley you know just try and mop a little bit okay and I got my beretta station already over here set up ready to go so I'm gonna put him back in this bowl I'm gonna throw it up really nice okay now we're back in here and I'm not sure I said is this okay all right we're ready to go now I got my egg some egg wash here I got some four eggs and about you know eight ounce of milk my flour and my bread crumbs I'm using some I seasoned bread crumbs you can make you only you can buy them already like this I have some oregano some basil some onion powder or garlic you can even put a little Parmesan cheese in there if you want they want to start our breading process here okay I'm gonna move this out of the way here so you guys see and make sure you say you know the dry hand wet hand method you don't want to make a mess okay wanna put them in the flour shake the excess and dump them in there okay and you can do it you know a bunch of my ahead of time keep them in the refrigerator before you fry them all it's it's normally what we do and then you can bake them with some tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese Parmesan cheese - come on - right now okay okay now I'm gonna stick my hand in here I'm going to put them in our breading mixture over here kind of drain some of the egg wash you don't get it breadcrumb sole or wet you want to press down a little bit so you want to kind of tap a little bit so the breadcrumbs to stick to the eggplant pieces and there you go if you want to use a Japanese breadcrumbs a little lighter you can - it's going to give a nice a crunchy texture and there's much lighter than regular breadcrumbs there's a lot more dense and they kind of soak more oil - but I'm just decided to go with the Italian style breadcrumbs which is already seasoned you can buy and plain and make your own breadcrumbs you know it's like you guys have some leftover bread you can make your own crank my oil over here so it's ready to go you need a lot of oil just kind of quarter-inch of the bottom because you don't wanna you can flip them over but if you can if you want to promote it's up to you whatever you want is fine I'm going to a few more pieces here okay as you can see my breadcrumbs are nice and dry make sure you do this because you don't want to stick your wet hand with a dry they make a mass is really you know not the heart just remember one hand for the dry and the other hand for the wet okay look at this I'm a layman my cutting board right now here I do a few more pieces here and once you have them ready I mean the restaurant sided you can even do them to order that way it's just you got am already you know bread it and it is dropping there the oil when that order comes in and but at home you can you know make it dish you know bake them and make a nice nice dinner for the family okay okay now I got my hand so you wanna slice and drive my own hands it's not that messy but if I mix them up I mean you get like flowering fingers and it gets really messy so make sure you use a proper braiding technique very simple okay now I'm going to move this to the side here someone I start frying my my eggplant pieces make sure my oil is nice and hot also got a plate over here with some paper towels and I'm gonna when I take them out to some of the oil kind of soaks into the paper towel make sure you do that that way you know then write to oily now I'm gonna drop them there probably the three pieces of the times is my pain is not that big there you go be careful when you put them in you don't want to burn yourself we're going to let them go until they get nice and golden brown then we're going to flip them over and they cook really quick they don't take too long so if you keep the flaming on medium I mean if you don't have a fry you can use a pan like this works great to skip an eye and the temperature you don't want to get the oil too hot and burn them so as you can see they're kind of annoying this one really well and when you do frying pretty much how it works it cooks from the inside out because once you drop the product in the fryer the moisture inside the product heats up and steam so when it comes out from ice cooking it the items so that's how frying works yes we have a question over here ok the question was if you fry if you slice a point ahead of time can you freeze em fry em later you can't but you know since I when you freeze something you know the the Crowder freezes and when it comes out is going to kind of wilt it but you can't do that maybe you want to put it between like paper towels and freeze it that way when you take it out you can still use them or you can write them too ahead of time and you can freeze them and then you take them out you put them in the fryer as well to probably easier to you know bread them and then you freeze them that way you don't have to do the you know the work twice so you can see it nice and golden when the president's really light I didn't put I mean you can do it two coats but one is enough you don't want to have too much credit because otherwise it's going to soak too much oil and you really don't want that you know you can see the nice and golden-brown I'll set up my little pan over here to bake them look at that very nice nice and crispy I want to take this one now because it's done you don't want to get them to brown either just a nice and nice golden color you won okay look at the end drop if the last pieces in there I use me tongs this time I don't want to put my fingers in there so be careful not to drop them too hard so you don't want the oil to splash and burn your hands that's a really bad way to bring your hands with hot oil so we have the risk on and you can try them in batches like it do it's really quick and once you get in all the eggplant spread it and like again you can put them in the refrigerator for a while and for you before you bread them put them in a sheet pan so they don't then I stacked on top which otherwise if you put them on top of each other it might get moist and the breading can get soaked and I come soft when you know when they stick together so you don't want to do they put them one layer and you might put a second layer but put some paper towels in between or maybe a plastic film look at this this is called Melanson a Italian way I'm sure you've been to an Italian place and Melanson is that name for the eggplant Italian so and they're really popular you can probably find them in every know Italian menu they they do eggplant parmesan you know rolled eggplant parmesan usually have to slice them the long way with it little tiny slices and also you can you know when you bake them you can you know lay them like a lasagna put cheese and sauce in between and you have like real thin slices but I chose to do a little you know thicker slices and you know you can use an appetizer an entree with let's salad but some pasta is we have another question over here oh they're they're really crispy okay the question was how do I know when they're done okay this it cooked very quick you know sigh cookin zucchinis really and once it did they get nice and golden brown they're done you take them off because we're still going to bake them so we're not quite done yet here so this is a little hard when I finished bake them in the oven that's a normal it's just want to get them nice and golden brown like this and then once we're done the frying when I we're going to bake them up to that which is tomato sauce or marinara whatever you want to use and some mozzarella cheese Parmesan cheese okay now I monitor my oil over here and then we're done with the frying process okay I'm gonna move this little bit are the way here cuz I don't want to drop anything and burn myself and then you see we got a nice eggplants are nice and golden nice and crispy too but this is going to be that soft but when we bake them to get nice and soft because I'm a tomato sauce is going to be you know helping with a crispy if you can see that nice and crispy right now but then we're going to bake them and a little bit so I got some tomato sauce over here that might little all been turned on and now up a little tomato sauce in the bottom here if you use like a baking dish like this or even bigger it works good too but I'm gonna use this little tiny dish because I'm have a big oven for me to use but normally you would use a oven safe dish like this or a metal one and you would put some sauce on the bottom and layer some of the eggplants in there this saw that on stick here and when I put one of this they won't see here two little ones here in my oven is not that big run up a little more tomato sauce on top you can use marinara sauce as well to it made some tomato sauce and now I'm going to top this with some mozzarella cheese this is sprinkle little Parmesan cheese as well we're not brown the cheese in this little toaster oven they got back here on if you cannot I could be like frying somewhere but since I don't need them anymore I'm just going to kind of clean up here if you guys have any questions please let me know I'm going to be serving this with some a little dot green salad over here so you can use pasta but I'm going to go a little light sunshine I use some baby greens here make it a little lighter meal you don't have to do this you can do whatever you want at home okay nice little salad here with my eggplant yes we have another question of a hip okay the question was can we do this with IO The Bachelor was like frying I assume frying them and bred them yes you can I mean you can do with zucchini even green peppers or like green tomatoes it's a good example you can do green tomatoes like this they're really popular and you can also use them and you can use them both maybe use some zucchini and kinda mix the vegetables up so you're going to get a nice different flavors in there when you make this but again zucchinis work great even the green tomatoes and even green peppers you want to do that I mean it's great you can do its wall I got some little yellow cherry tomatoes here I'm going to use okay my eggplant Brown they're really nice okay some nice color here soak a little right on this I'm going to put on top of my cell and you can do whatever you want I'm just giving you an example making something kind of light I don't want something heavy but you can do like pasta if you want a little more hard dish to do some pasta I also want to chop a little some Italian pasta mother you know top it off and I finish my egg plan a little right on the oil dry oregano some Italian parsley on top it's a garnish as you guys can see it's really quick to do this kind of dishes I mean you can make dinner in 20 to 25 minutes if you like you know if you already ahead of time and prep everything and you can just put it together really really easy and I know some of you guys have gardens you probably grow up in eggplant so this is a good way to to use them so okay they're getting nice and brown back there mom's ready to go okay I got my parsley cut up here okay now I'm going to show you see I just under the broiler they got nice and golden brown so I'm just going to present this put them in a dish if you want to pull the sauce on the bottom that's fine - or just you can see that nice and soft now see there you go you can make a really nice tasty meal really fast you know doesn't take too long now we're going to sprinkle this with some fresh chopped Italian parsley now I'm gonna sprinkle a little dry rag on on top okay and everywhere if you want to pull it on more tomato sauce it did that's fine too I just decided to keep it like this nice and simple if you can you know add more it's creates a wonderful dish and I mean so simple you can see that you can do some really tasty vegetarian dishes in this can i special tera meal for those of you let me know need ideas or don't eat me this is a great filling tasty dish and just not vegetables so I want to thank you for being here with me this morning if you guys don't have any more questions I want to wrap it up and okay the question was if you are I'm just baking it this until the cheese melts and pretty much yes because this is already pre cook and like I said this is nice and soft now they're nice and a juice in the center and you just want our kind of bake until the cheese pretty much melt and egg and it's going to be quick if you put it in a dish like this and I put an oven maybe 10-15 minutes because I use the broiler right now so it's much quicker but if you have an oven the power of ten minutes will put the oven embroil and you're going to you know have the cheese nice and brown and they're done so really it's it's very quick anything else guys I want to thank you for being here with me this morning I see you next week and uh thanks again

Channel: Escoffier Home Gourmet

Views: 720,065

Rating: 4.734282 out of 5

Keywords: Parmigiano-Reggiano (Cheese), eggplant parmesan, Eggplant (Food), eggplant parmesan recipe, how to make eggplant parmesan, italian recipes, italian dishes, cooking video, online culinary school, culinary chef, Parmigiana (Dish), Italian Food (Industry), Chef (Profession)

Id: 2L3Nk62Ag-E

Length: 22min 6sec (1326 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 02 2015