Italian Cuisine

Eggplant parmigiana (parmigiana di melanzane)

Cuisine: Italian Prep time: 1 hr(s) 35 min(s) Cooking time: 1 hr(s) 10 min(s) Servings: Serves 6 Created by Rosa Matto

As a young teacher posted to the outback, Rosa Matto began to introduce good Italian home cooking to her fellow staff and local families. She later set up her own cooking school and has taught legions of people to appreciate Italian food. Recipes like this one are from Campania, where her family comes from.

This is a favourite picnic dish, and sometimes Rosa uses zucchini instead of eggplant. It is a little time-consuming to prepare, though the result is always worthwhile and the dish feeds lots of people as part of a spread. (If you also plan to serve the dish at room temperature at a picnic, the recipe is best made without bocconcini as it hardens on cooling.)

Ingredients

3 large eggplants
salt
plain flour
4 eggs, beaten
olive oil

Sugo
80 ml olive oil
1 ~onion, finely chopped
1 ~garlic clove, chopped
750 ml tomato puree (Rosa uses homemade passata) or an 800 g tin Italian tomatoes, or 12 very ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
salt and pepper
½ bunch basil leaves, chopped, plus extra leaves for layering
250 g bocconcini or fresh mozzarella, sliced
100 g parmesan, grated

Preparation

Slice the eggplant no thicker than 1 cm. Sprinkle the slices with salt, stack in a colander and weight down with a heavy object. Leave for 1 hour. Pat the slices dry and lightly coat in flour. Dip into the beaten egg, shaking off the excess, and fry in hot oil until golden brown on each side. Drain on paper towel.

To make the sugo, heat the oil and fry the onion and garlic until soft. Add the tomato and bring to the boil. Cook until lightly thickened. Season to taste and add half of the basil.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Smear the bottom of a baking dish with sugo then add a layer of eggplant. Dot with slices of bocconcini, a sprinkling of parmesan and a few torn basil leaves. Continue to layer until you have used up the eggplant, and finish with sugo topped with cheese.

Bake for 20–25 minutes, until the top is golden. Allow to rest for 10 minutes or so. To serve, lift off layers rather than cutting a wedge.

SBS cook’s notes
Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55–60 g, unless specified.

Italian Restaurants

Displaying 10 of 2165 Italian Restaurants.

Restaurant Suburb
1. The Beresford Hotel Surry Hills
2. Cellar 47 Shepparton
3. Valentino's Northbridge
4. Smithfield Tavern Smithfield
5. Benny's Bar & Cafe Fremantle
6. Universal Bar Northbridge
7. Arch Rival Palmerston
8. Railway Hotel Fitzroy North
9. Vibe Cafe Restaurant St Kilda
10. Morning Star Estate Mt Eliza
   
18 Oct 2012 08:28 AEST
glenda
Just want to know if you can make this a couple days before leave in the fridge and pop into oven
30 Apr 2012 10:05 AEST
Rebecca
Greensborough
Great!
Fantastic recipe, we couldn't get enough of it - with homegrown basil from the garden this was perfect. :)
19 May 2011 09:32 AEST
Lea
I have made this dish for years for my family of all males and they love even though it is vegie. Many of their mates love it even if they state they hate vegie food. They keep coming back for more.
14 May 2011 06:48 AEST
Cathy
I have just made this dish with the help of my 8 year old, what a fantastic bonding experience ! It smells soooooo good !
22 Feb 2011 04:14 AEST
Mel
Adelaide
Perfecto
I love this receipe exactly how it is. It just melts in your mouth and is so delicious.Tastes fantastic with homemade tomato sauce! I also think it's easy enough for anyone to make it.
27 Jan 2011 06:29 AEST
Melissa
Kensington
Great meal
I've cooked this a few times now, and It's fantastic every time. I've even stacked it with lasagne sheets and it's worked well! Great meal.
03 Jan 2011 04:01 AEST
Rosa
just like my nonna made for me back in italy now i can make it to and my daughter just loves it thank you for having it on your show
11 Jul 2010 03:10 AEST
jody
try crumbing...... adding finely chopped fresh parsley and garlic and a sprinkle of grated parmesan to the crumbs, then shallow frying....more fattening no doubt, but .v nice. bon apetit.
28 May 2010 08:05 AEST
Andrew Corney and Kirsty Corney
We cooked this at home to the recipe but with the one change, we used Boccochini instead of mozarella and changed the basil to oregano, as my wife is allergic to basil. We also served it with a bottle of sparkling shiraz, which complemented the dish perfectly. We both loved this dish and are cooking it again. i think will become a favorite in our household. Thank You for this fantastic dish
25 Apr 2010 04:37 AEST
Terry
I have always loved eggplant. A quicker, and just as tasty way is to steam the eggplant slices until they are soft and floppy but not cooked too much where they fall apart. Cool then proceed with the recipe.
21 Apr 2010 04:08 AEST
alexandra
melbourne
Amazing!!!!
I made this just after seeing the episode-amazing!!!! it really melted in your mouth. I'm making it again tonight-its a real winner!!!!!
11 Apr 2010 11:59 AEST
Nalin
I made this dish tonight, with a slight variation as I only decided after cooking a basic pasta sauce that I would expand it to become eggplant parmigiana - so I had onion, capsicum and zucchini in the sauce, and used no cheese as my daughter has a dairy intolerance - suffice to say the people to whom I served the dish were extremely happy! They ummed and ahhed through the dish the whole way through, just the way I like it! Thank you for the inspiration and the instruction!
02 Apr 2010 09:39 AEST
Sally
Years ago a wonderful Italian restaurant in Tugun (now long gone unfortunately) used to offer a welcoming single serve of eggplant parmigiana to arriving patrons. ie just one slice of eggplant plus cheese and sauce - we still remember it fondly - Great idea for a meze or entre?

Comment on this recipe

You have characters left.

Validation (What's this?) : This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.

PLEASE NOTE: All submitted comments become the property of SBS. We reserve the right to edit and/or amend submitted comments. HTML tags other than paragraph, line break, bold or italics will be removed from your comment.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

SBS FOOD SAFARI SHOP

Food Safari, Series 4 (DVD)

Food Safari, Series 4 (DVD)

Maeve O’Meara explores flavours new to Australia - Peruvian, Cypriot, Filipino, South African, Lao, Polish, Afghan, Danish plus creole fare in Broome and Darwin.

Food Safari Books and DVDs

Food Safari Books and DVDs

Take a Food Safari to the SBS shop to find all your favourite products.

ADVERTISEMENT