Eggplant is one of those vegetables that has a lot of fans and a lot of enemies. It just so happens that I am a big fan thanks to my mother who often made me Dominican-style Berenjenas Fritas, a double fried eggplant with a salty and crispy egg coating. She would serve it nice and hot with a big serving of white rice. There are different methods to make Berenjenas Fritas (like this one at the Dominican Cooking website) but I really wanted to stick to my mom's recipe since it's produced amazing results.
Eggland's Best and Foodbuzz provided me with a carton of Eggland's Best eggs and this gives me an opportunity to try a couple of recipes. I had never made my mother's Berenjenas Fritas and I have yet to make Pasteis de Belem (Portuguese Custard Tarts), so I decided to use the eggs to make both. This is a good way for me to tap into my Dominican heritage on my mother's side and my Portuguese heritage on my father's side! Enjoy.
Ingredients:
One large eggplant
3/4 cup of flour
3 Eggland's Best Eggs beaten
Salt to taste
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Take your eggplant and cut off the top and bottom. Peel by running your knife along the side, stripping away the skin section by section. If you like eggplant skin, just leave it on.
Cut the eggplant in half through the middle. Then cut each section into slices. Salt the slices liberally and put into a colainder. Let them sit for about 10 minutes. The salt will season the eggplant slices and extract some of the extra liquid from the vegetable.
Heat up a large skillet with light olive oil (not extra-virgin) or canola oil. When the oil starts to sizzle, fry the eggplant slices in batches of 3 or 4. Cook each side for about 2-3 minutes or until lightly brown. Eggplant absorbs a lot of oil so you will want to keep adding to the pan. Just down add too much.
Fry all the eggplant this way. Set batches aside on paper towels.
When you are done frying all the eggplants, fry them again in batches of 3-4 slices at a time. Coat each slice in flour then dip in egg. You want to get a good amount of egg on the eggplant so make sure to really dunk it in.
Add the coated eggplant back to the hot skillet and fry for 2 minutes on each side. Keep adding oil to the pan whenever it looks dry.
Add fried eggplant slices to new paper towels to sop up the excess oil and to keep them crispy. Season the slices with salt immediately.
The best pieces of the Double-Fried Eggy Eggplant are the ones with the extra egg crisp along the edges. Mmmm! I hope you will try this recipe out. I like to eat it with white rice and green beans.
I love fried & battered eggplant, but I never tried double frying it! Next time I'll do that to the thick slices.
ReplyDeleteI usually make them paper thin with a mandoline, flour, egg & bread crumbs. Makes a very decadent eggplant parmigiana too, but I prefer snacking on fried slices!