Baked Italian eggplant...tastes like pizza!
My sheet pan version of Eggplant Parmi - rich, savoury, smokey, cheesy, tomato-garlicky, and heavenly. Plus, other dishes I cooked last week.
When we lived in London, I loved going to a restaurant called Flat Iron. It’s a steak place (flat iron specifically) but they do a few tasty vegetable sides and I would always order the baked eggplant.
Layers of browned eggplant, rich tomato sauce and cheese are baked in a small, single-portioned baking dish and it’s properly well-baked. The cheese crust is properly browned, and the eggplant edges are caramelised. It’s divine, better than the steak, which is very good there. The whole thing is gooey, chewy, and almost meaty.
My latest blog recipe is inspired by that dish AND the classic eggplant Parmigiana. Unlike the traditional dish, my version is thin and baked on a large, flat sheet pan. Layers of grilled eggplant smothered in a rich and savoury tomato sauce cooked with garlic, sun-dried tomatoes and a touch of chilli and baked with Mozzarella and Parmesan for that golden, well-baked cheese crust finish.
It’s great straight out of the oven but even better slightly cooled.
Ingredients
For eggplant
4 medium to large eggplants, sliced vertically into 0.5-0.8 cm pieces
2 teaspoons salt
9 tablespoons olive oil
For tomato sauce (sugo)
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely diced
1/3 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes (6-7 whole dried tomatoes, in oil)
2 cans chopped tinned tomatoes (400 g each / 14 oz)
1.5 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
To bake
1 x large sheet pan or baking dish
1 cup grated Mozzarella cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Garnish: 1/4 cup basil leaves
More Yummy Eggplant Recipes
Here are some of my other delicious recipes with eggplant.
Vietnamese Lemongrass Eggplant Banh Mi
Tomato Miso Roasted Eggplant
Pisto (Spanish Vegetable Stew)
Things I’ve bookmarked recently
Loved watching this cheese-making video from @shelburnefarms on Facebook.
Inspired to make this sheet pan lemon chicken with sweet potato and avocado goddess sauce by @halfbakedharvest.
Also, with Easter coming up, I thought this is a clever idea for eco-friendly fillable paper eggs from @brightly.eco.
Stuff I ate last week
Tomatoes are in season so I got some heirloom heart tomatoes for an easy, breezy Mozzarella Caprese (see what I did there?). Served with homemade Spanish potato egg tortilla and Hungarian salami. Very Euro!
Cauliflower fried rice with fridge leftovers, namely: onions, garlic, ginger, carrots, bok choy, salami, Japanese tofu, oyster sauce and Tamari. Random but good!
Mini banana muffins with strawberries! My daughter calls them cupcakes but whatever. It’s based on my banana choc chip muffin recipe but we added chopped strawberries instead of chocolate.
We had a few people over for a BBQ on the weekend. I thought the spread was on point! Here is what we had (stuff I made and contributions): a variety of barbecued meat, a potato tortilla I mentioned above, grilled halloumi, my red cabbage apple and Parmesan coleslaw, Ottolenghi-esk tomato citrus salad, and yours truly baked Italian eggplant.
What are you cooking up lately? Let me know in the comments!