Eggplant Parmesan with Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Sauce

I’ve been drooling over this recipe for quite some time.  And last night, I finally tried it.  I started cooking just before 7 and we didn’t eat til about 930.  But it was definitely worth it.  I pulled the recipe from Bobby Flay.

Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Sauce:

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 large yellow onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 large jar of roasted red peppers (drained and chopped) or 3 large roasted red peppers (seeded and chopped)

2 (28 ounce) cans of plum tomatoes and juice

1 (28 ounce) can of crushed tomatoes

bunch of fresh basil and oregano finely chopped

salt and pepper

sugar

In a large pot, heat the olive oil.  Add the onions and cook til soft.  Mix in the garlic and red pepper flakes.  Continue cooking a few minutes.  Add the red peppers and cook for another few minutes.  Pour in all those tomatoes but be careful it splashes.  Simmer for about 25 minutes.  Stir occasionally.  Take off heat and let it cool for about ten minutes.  Transfer the sauce to a food processor or blender and mix until smooth.  Pour back into the pot and return to heat.  Pour in basil, oregano, salt and pepper.  I added several pinches of sugar to even out the sauce.  Store for later use or just remove from heat until you’re ready to put everything together.

Eggplant:

2 eggplants, cut into 1/2″ rounds (you’ll need 12 or 18 rounds depending on how many layers you want)

Italian breadcrumbs

flour

eggs, beaten

vegetable oil, for frying

salt & pepper

fresh mozzarella thinly sliced

shredded mozzarella

grated pecorino romano, asiago, parmesan (I found a blend that was so tasty)

Preheat the oven to 400.  Now you can start breading and frying the eggplant. Slice the eggplant into 1/2″ rounds.  Salt and pepper the slices.  I had way too much eggplant.  For a 9×13″ dish, I used 12 eggplant rounds and had 2 layers.  You could have more layers or use a different size dish and need different amounts of eggplant.

Take each round and dredge in flour, dip in egg, shaking off excess, then coat in breadcrumbs.  Once you’ve finished all of that you can fry.  Heat about two inches of vegetable oil to 350.  Fry eggplant until golden.

Next step is assembling.  Coat bottom of dish with sauce, then layer fried eggplant with more sauce and plenty of grated and shredded cheese.  Continue til you’ve finished all your layers. Use the fresh mozzarella for the top.  You’ll know that the dish is done cooking when the mozzarella has started to brown.  Takes about 30-35 minutes.  It took much longer than I thought it would, but it was oh so good.  And even Greg loved it.  And he previously claimed that he didn’t like eggplant. (*cough* gillie, you should try this on brian *cough*)