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Roberto’s Eggplant Parmigiana [Recipe]

[additional-authors]
May 29, 2013

This dish is named after Roberto Benabib, writer and producer of WEEDS. He and his wife Samantha, a college friend of mine, were my first daring clients. I delivered food twice a week to their love-filled home after the delivery of their baby Carolina. We had an initial consultation in which they got to tell me all that they liked to eat, and more importantly what they didn't like to eat.

Note to the unassuming: when preparing food for this kind of job, you need to think of foods that reheat well and are still just as good after the second time on the stove or in the oven.

Basically everything that I had in mind was exactly what they would not eat. Believe it or not, this was a blessing. It was an opportunity for me to work on new kinds of recipes. I set to work in my kitchen testing out turkey meatballs that never touched a hot oiled skillet, salmon crisped in the oven and then cooked in a puttanesca sauce, and ultimately this baked-not-fried eggplant parmigiana.

Now let me be very clear: I never liked eggplant parmigiana. I found it too heavy. It has even made me feel nauseous at times. (Of course no Italian can believe this; they all tell me I have never eaten a proper one. I think I just don’t like fried foods with sauce and cheese.)

I am not sure how I came up with the idea to make Roberto and Samantha a baked eggplant parmigiana, but I am pretty sure that as a perennially disappointed connoisseur of the stuff, I was the right person to work on an eggplant parm that would be both light and delicious. I figured that the eggplant slices could be lightly breaded and could be baked instead of fried easily enough. I imagined them with a sweet-ish, tangy-ish tomato basil sauce, parmigiano reggiano and then mozzarella only on the top layer, as to not weigh the whole thing down with melted cheese. It worked, with fireworks on top. This became Roberto's favorite dish and we made sure there was one waiting for him each week.

So anyway, dear Roberto, this one is for you…

 

Ingredients:
serves 4 hungry people, recipe can easily be doubled

(Vigor Triggers: To read Health Benefits of each ingredient, click on it)

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