“New” Eggplant Parmesan

This is not your grandmother’s eggplant parmesan – or in my case, my mother-in-law’s.

Josephine R was of Sicilian descent and was an amazing cook. Thankfully she taught both of her children much of what she knew. Ed does an amazing job with her eggplant parmesan. It’s a labor of love breading and frying each slice and then layering it with homemade marinara (or red sauce) and mozzarella cheese. When he does make it, he makes a lot so we can share it with family and friends or freeze it for a future meal. Needless to say when I stopped eating wheat, he made it less as gluten-free bread crumbs just aren’t the same as those full of gluten.

Imagine my surprise when Ed came across this recipe in The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual and suggested that we try it. He said he really hoped that it was as good as his mom’s as it was much easier to make. I was a bit skeptical as I always thought the key to great eggplant parmesan was frying the eggplant. Wow was I wrong. This is a game changer recipe for those who love eggplant parmesan. Plus, there are no bread crumbs so it’s naturally gluten-free. 

Why is it so good? It bakes in the oven for three and a half hours (yes, 210 minutes!) and when it’s done the layers have kind of melted together to form perfect bites (but not mush). You use a lot of grated Pecorino-Romano cheese which somehow still retains some of the crumbly consistency which makes my mind think there’s some breadcrumbs involved. Whatever happens in the oven during the long bake doesn’t matter – it just comes out tasting delicious.

Since there are so few ingredients, I do recommend making your own marinara or red sauce. We used my mother-in-law’s recipe which was a nice way to bridge from an old recipe to a new one. Josephine’s Marinara Sauce (Red Sauce) is very easy to make using canned tomatoes. 

This recipe calls for freshly ground white pepper. If this isn’t in your spice cabinet, please seek it out. You’ll likely find it in a disposable pepper grinder. The “Franks” behind this recipe swear by white pepper: “We use white pepper for cooking just about everything. If we could only have one pepper on hand, it would be white pepper, without question. It’s a hang-up that we picked up from working in French kitchens and have never let go of it. It’s a big part of the flavor of our food. The funkier, more complex, more nuanced flavor of white pepper can stand up to cooking, and it doesn’t speckle a dish the way black pepper does. There’s something about the interplay of Pecorino-Romano – our cooking cheese of choice – and white pepper that knocks it out of the park. Maybe nobody would ever guess that this is the secret flavor combination behind a lot of our dishes, but there you go. In our kitchens, black pepper is a finishing pepper, something you add right at the end.” (from The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual by Frank Falcinelli, Frank Castronovo and Peter Meehan) I know that’s a lot about white pepper. I don’t use it regularly but reading this has changed my perspective about it and I thought it might do the same for you.

There’s plenty of cheese in this recipe – don’t be tempted to add layers of mozzarella. The Franks used to make it that way and moved away from it. Adding some fresh mozzarella on top at the end is the perfect finishing touch.

You’ll need about 4-½ to 5 hours (most unattended) to make the sauce and eggplant parmesan from start to finish. Begin with the sauce (which needs to cook for about an hour) and then move onto peeling, slicing and pre-cooking the eggplant. You can eat this right out of the oven or let it sit a bit and eat it warm. I assure you, it’s worth the time as this recipe does not disappoint.

Source:  Adapted from Frank Falcinelli, Frank Castronovo and Peter Meehan’s The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual (2010)