Photo by Bobbi Misiti
Ingredients
- 1 Large eggplant
- For the SAUCE:
- 1 small onion
- 3-4 (or more) cloves garlic, crushed and then sliced thinly
- 1 TBSP or more fresh oregano (dried is ok too)
- 1 handful fresh basil leaves, chopped.
- Roma tomatoes - blanched and skins slipped off.
- For the EGGPLANT:
- 1-2 eggs for coating eggplant
- Panko style bread crumbs or other breading / almond meal, etc. of your choice
- Pecorino or Parmesan type of cheese
- Provolone or Mozzarella
- Pasta of your choice, cooked al dente
Instructions
Begin by sweating your eggplant; slice it lengthwise, fairly thin. Skin on or off depending on your preference. Salt both sides of it and place the eggplant in a glass casserole dish for 20-30 minutes and let it sweat. (While the eggplant is sweating you can start your sauce.) Pat the eggplant dry.
For the Sauce:
saute’ onion and garlic in EVOO add oregano and basil. Add chopped roma tomatoes and let simmer.
Pat your eggplant dry. Whip your eggs. Place breading on a plate. Dip your eggplant in the eggs and roll it in the breading. Sauté your eggplant in ghee, EVOO, or coconut oil until browned.
Layer a ladle full of sauce in the bottom of your casserole dish. Lay eggplant on sauce, and cover eggplant with remaining sauce.
Sprinkle with pecorino cheese and bake at 350o for about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and top with provolone cheese or mozzarella, put eggplant back in the oven for another 5-10 minute or until cheese gets a little bubbly.
Serve over pasta of your choosing.
Note from Bobbi: I am sometimes sensitive to nightshades (due to their glycoalkaloid content) so have to be careful with eggplant. However some foods do protect us from anti-nutrients in other foods, and I have found organic wheat pasta to protect me from the inflammatory response from the nightshades in the eggplant. I know, for many pasta or wheat is inflammatory – perhaps though if you find wheat inflammatory you are not buying organic wheat? Non-organic wheat is decimated with round up just a couple days before harvest and therefore contains high levels of roundup. This could be the reason — not the wheat in and of itself.