Maura's recipe 'melanzane alla parmigiana'
Make the tomato sauce:
2 tins of quality chopped tomatoes
A tablespoon of olive oil for the sauce.
Cup of chicken or vegetable stock
3-4 garlic cloves
Bunch of basil leaves.
Pinch of salt.
10 long aubergines, press the skin, it should be hard and shiny.
2 smoked mozzarella, or scamorza or provola (these are all the same thing really it just depends what you can find, smoked mozzarella brings so much more taste than plain mozzarella). Carluccio’s Deli sell the perfect scamorza.
Lots of freshly grated parmesan
Another bunch of basil leaves
Put the skinless crushed garlic cloves into the olive oil and saute till beginning to colour, add the tomatoes and basil, stir and wait till the sauce starts to simmer, add the stock and leave the saucepan lid slightly open. Cook slowly for 40 mins stirring occasionally. This is not a ragu`, where you would add meat to the sauce, but the same rule applies, in Naples they say a good tomato or ragu sauce must do some ‘thinking’ so it should just bubble or ‘pop’ occasionally and cannot be hurried.
The aubergines, once fried, tend to reduce to very little and the bulging bag of aubergines you’ve dragged home will end up barely a plateful so don’t balk at the quantity. Take 10 aubergines, and only slice them as you need to so that they don’t start prematurely browning. I usually have two pans on the go, this saves a bit of time as you can’t really leave the cooker for a minute or they burn. Remove the skin, slice lengthways about ½ centimetre thick slices if you can, it doesn’t matter if some are thicker than others or if you only get half a slice, chuck them in a medium hot frying pan (the largest you have) of basic olive oil and fry till they’re nicely browned, not burnt and not barely coloured, but nicely browned. As they brown, turn them over for more of the same. Have a large platter standing by to place them on when ready. Aubergines require a lot of oil as whilst cooking they will soak it up and when resting they will exude it, don’t worry all this will become part of the lovely unctiousness of the finished dish.
Now, we start assembling. Tale a largish ovenproof dish and put a ladle of sauce in, then taking the fried aubergines one by one place a layer of them over the bottom of the dish, put a tiny amount of salt on each aubergine, sprinkle some basil leaves, followed by some slices of the smoked mozzarella, another ladle of sauce covering all the aubergines and a good 3 tablespoons of grated parmigiano. Continue doing this ‘building’ until the aubergines are used up, top layer is sauce and parmigiano. Put it in the oven for about 35 mins at 180 degrees. Leave to cool, even put in the fridge, it’s so delicious cold. Cut into portions. The Neopolitan picnic on the beach consists of ciabatta rolls or loaf with the bread taken out of the middle (more room for filling) and place a portion, or portions if it’s a loaf, on the roll, squash it down a bit and place the top on using weight to ‘close’ it, so the bread soaks up some of the sauce. If Positano or Ischia isn’t on your doorstep, you can always serve it with a mozzarella and rocket salad, and an Art House Wine ‘natural’ (i.e no sulphites) Fiano or Falanghina from our southern vineyard Terra di Briganti, the Land of the Brigands, with food and wine like the above I wonder if they appreciated that they were rich beyond their wildest dreams?
2 tins of quality chopped tomatoes
A tablespoon of olive oil for the sauce.
Cup of chicken or vegetable stock
3-4 garlic cloves
Bunch of basil leaves.
Pinch of salt.
10 long aubergines, press the skin, it should be hard and shiny.
2 smoked mozzarella, or scamorza or provola (these are all the same thing really it just depends what you can find, smoked mozzarella brings so much more taste than plain mozzarella). Carluccio’s Deli sell the perfect scamorza.
Lots of freshly grated parmesan
Another bunch of basil leaves
Put the skinless crushed garlic cloves into the olive oil and saute till beginning to colour, add the tomatoes and basil, stir and wait till the sauce starts to simmer, add the stock and leave the saucepan lid slightly open. Cook slowly for 40 mins stirring occasionally. This is not a ragu`, where you would add meat to the sauce, but the same rule applies, in Naples they say a good tomato or ragu sauce must do some ‘thinking’ so it should just bubble or ‘pop’ occasionally and cannot be hurried.
The aubergines, once fried, tend to reduce to very little and the bulging bag of aubergines you’ve dragged home will end up barely a plateful so don’t balk at the quantity. Take 10 aubergines, and only slice them as you need to so that they don’t start prematurely browning. I usually have two pans on the go, this saves a bit of time as you can’t really leave the cooker for a minute or they burn. Remove the skin, slice lengthways about ½ centimetre thick slices if you can, it doesn’t matter if some are thicker than others or if you only get half a slice, chuck them in a medium hot frying pan (the largest you have) of basic olive oil and fry till they’re nicely browned, not burnt and not barely coloured, but nicely browned. As they brown, turn them over for more of the same. Have a large platter standing by to place them on when ready. Aubergines require a lot of oil as whilst cooking they will soak it up and when resting they will exude it, don’t worry all this will become part of the lovely unctiousness of the finished dish.
Now, we start assembling. Tale a largish ovenproof dish and put a ladle of sauce in, then taking the fried aubergines one by one place a layer of them over the bottom of the dish, put a tiny amount of salt on each aubergine, sprinkle some basil leaves, followed by some slices of the smoked mozzarella, another ladle of sauce covering all the aubergines and a good 3 tablespoons of grated parmigiano. Continue doing this ‘building’ until the aubergines are used up, top layer is sauce and parmigiano. Put it in the oven for about 35 mins at 180 degrees. Leave to cool, even put in the fridge, it’s so delicious cold. Cut into portions. The Neopolitan picnic on the beach consists of ciabatta rolls or loaf with the bread taken out of the middle (more room for filling) and place a portion, or portions if it’s a loaf, on the roll, squash it down a bit and place the top on using weight to ‘close’ it, so the bread soaks up some of the sauce. If Positano or Ischia isn’t on your doorstep, you can always serve it with a mozzarella and rocket salad, and an Art House Wine ‘natural’ (i.e no sulphites) Fiano or Falanghina from our southern vineyard Terra di Briganti, the Land of the Brigands, with food and wine like the above I wonder if they appreciated that they were rich beyond their wildest dreams?