I made eggplant parmesan for the first time and it was a success. Nothing caught fire, my definition of success. I started off with Martha Stewart’s baked version. Most of her recipes are detailed and nearly foolproof. I also have respect for her. She did time and started rebuilding after, coming through stronger and now she’s having a resurgence during the pandemic. She makes adversity work for her. This looked good.
https://www.marthastewart.com/313564/baked-eggplant-parmesan
Then I went to YouTube to look around and found this dude. His version is more traditional and fried. He did things differently and I admit I watched this video over and over; he seemed to enjoy what he’s doing and made it look possible even for someone like me. But I followed Martha’s recipe.
In the interest of accuracy, there are some leftovers in the fridge. But my son and daughter-in-law ate it, and both liked it. My son gave me the highest praise of anything I’ve made so far– it is edible and he would offer it to visitors (that we wanted to stay). Daughter-in-law likes baked eggplant over fried and said using less tomato sauce (like I did, following YouTube guy’s example) was better.
There were a few hairy moments, such as discovering seeds in the eggplant. Do I remove them or not? Nobody says but Martha’s video shows eggplant slices with seeds. At first I scraped out the seeds from some slices. But seeing the ragged looking result and all the tiny seeds scattered over my kitchen, I decided the heck with it. Do I peel the eggplant? Martha says yes but YouTube guy says no. I peeled those suckers. The breadcrumbs don’t adhere so well to the egg covered eggplant after awhile. Nobody tells you to use half the breadcrumbs with eggplant #1 and then use the rest on eggplant #2. Also there’s the supposed prep time. This took me longer, because I had to bake my eggplant in 2 batches. I only have one big baking sheet. I used more cheese than recommended and I don’t regret it. I will make this again. Eventually.
quichepuppy 