Introduction

In the 1960’s, my grandmother, Vincenza, had returned to Boston’s North End, the neighborhood where she had first arrived in America. She had come full circle, having arrived in the North End in 1914 to find a filthy, overcrowded slum, to achieving the American Dream and owning a home in the suburbs to finally coming back to the place that felt comfortable and safe and reminded her of Italy as much as any American neighborhood could.
By this time, the North End had progressed from the run down slum it once had been to a tourist attraction for visitors to Boston. People came in droves to visit the small specialty shops along Salem Street, eat in the many restaurants that served regional dishes from all over Italy and to experience the sense of community that had grown and developed over the decades since Vincenza first arrived in Boston.
Walking up the four flights of old wooden stairs to my grandmother’s apartment, I could smell the food cooking from the apartments that lined both sides of the long hallways. The air would be filled with the mouth watering aromas of garlic frying in olive oil, peppers roasting and fresh bread being baked. My grandmother’s kitchen was always rich with the aroma of tomato sauce simmering on the stove, anise cookies baking in the oven and the light, sweet scent of ricotta mixed with eggs and parsley.
I spent hours in my grandmother’s kitchen watching her prepare meals; recipes and techniques passed down from her mother, Lucia; meals that she learned to prepare in an old stone kitchen over an open fire back in “the old Country”, Abruzzi. It seems that there was a story or some type of folk lore to go with every meal she prepared. I loved listening to the stories as much as I loved helping to prepare and eat the food.
The recipes I learned from my grandmother are the recipes of the peasant farmers, sheep herders and laborers of Abbruzzi. They are recipes developed out of necessity; the need to use every bit of food available and waste nothing; the need to find a way to fill your family and keep them nourished even when food and money were scarce. These are not gourmet recipes that use expensive, trendy ingredients. I am not a professional chef. Hopefully, you will enjoy the idea of making comfort food, plain family friendly meals, some of which go back centuries and have their roots in ancient Roman times. I learned that food was something to be fully experienced with all the senses. A meal was meant to be made from scratch, using the freshest ingredients possible. It was meant to be made with love and it was to be shared with family and friends, relished and savored. A full day could go into the preparation of a meal that would be served with pride and love to the family and friends gathered at the table. A meal was a social event; a time to sit around the table, talk, laugh and unwind.
The preparation of food was an art in itself. Food incorporated all the senses. One not only paid attention to taste, but also to the aromas, textures, appearance and sometimes even the sound of food. My grandmother never wrote down or read a recipe. All the knowledge of cooking was stored in her head. She learned to cook from instinct, using all her sense to determine what flavors would work together. I learned to cook the same way my grandmother and great grandmother did. Measurements consisted of a pinch, a bit and a handful.
I cannot begin to explain how difficult it is for me to write the recipes for this blog and for the upcoming cookbook. I learned to measure with a pinch, a handful, a little of this and a generous amount of that. Taste, sight and common sense told me whether or not the amount was right. In writing a cookbook, I had to prepare my grandmother’s and great grandmother’s dishes, trying to measure ingredients to make it easy for others to follow. I learned that this is easier said than done. Half way through the preparation, I realized that I was reverting to instinct and forgetting to measure. That’s what Italian cooking is. You learn to use all your senses to create a meal and you eventually know what flavors will complement one another.
Therefore, in reading these recipes and trying them out, you cannot take the measurements as absolute, but rather as guidelines for amounts. In some cases I have state that you should use a pinch or a bit of an ingredient. This will no doubt cause panic for some people who tend to worry too much about whether or not they are doing it right. These people are missing out on the joy of cooking and the opportunity to develop an intimate relationship to the food. I hope that anyone reading this will eventually try to let loose and have some fun cooking. Learn to trust your instincts, learn to uses all your senses in cooking, and learn to cook like an Italian.







































































































Monday, December 27, 2010

Linda's 5 Cheese Eggplant Parmesan

This is a staple dish for gatherings in my family. A big Sunday or holiday dinner always includes eggplant parmesan. It is a bit time consuming to make, but you will realize it's well worth the effort when you slice into those thick, rich layers of delicious eggplant, sauce and cheese. Although my family uses this as a side dish to a large meal, it can be a meal in itself. It is rich and filling.


Ingredients:
1 large eggplant
4 eggs beaten
2 cups seasoned breadcrumbs
2 grated parmesean cheese
24 ounces of shredded mozzarella
1/2 pound of mild cheddar, sliced thin or shredded
1 cup of grated fontina cheese
1 cup of grated asiago cheese

For those who noticed, no, cheddar is not a cheese normally used in Italian cooking. My mother, Linda, modified the recipe because the sheep's milk cheese one would actually use can be very difficult to find outside of specialty cheese shop. The result was positive. The cheddar adds a nice, rich, creaminess.

Cut off the top and bottom, stem sections of the eggplant and peel away all of the purple outer skin. Some people leave the skin on. It is edible when cooked, but can also be very bitter. This dish works best with peeled eggplant. You don't want the bitter flavor to over power the dish.

Cut the eggplant into thin slices.

Beat the eggs and and place in a large shallow bowl.
Place about a half inch deep layer of breadcrumbs into a second bowl.

Dip the slices of eggplant, one by one, into the egg making sure to coat both sides completely.

Place the eggplant slice into the bowl of breadcrumbs and coat it completely on both sides. Continue this until all of your eggplant slices have been battered. As you continue breading each slice, the breadcrumbs will become gummy and stick together. When this happens and you are find it difficult to easily coat the eggplant, discard the breadcrumbs and put more into the bowl.

Once all the eggplant has been coated and is ready for cooking ready, fill a frying pan with enough oil to completely cover the eggplant slices. These are going to be cooked just a few at a time as they need to be placed in the oil in a single layer.
Place the battered sliced eggplant into the oil, as few at a time so as not to crowd or overlap them in the pan. This may take a while but it is important. otherwise the eggplant will not be evenly and fully fried and therefore will not have the proper taste and texture.

Keep the heat at low to medium low and fry the eggplant until until the breadcrumb coating has turned a deep golden brown. keep an eye on the eggplant while cooking as it is very easy to burn it. Once it has turned golden brown, remove the cooked slices immediately and place on a thick layer of paper towels or a clean dish towel to absorb excess oil. Again, this is an important step so that your end dish does not come out greasy.
Continue this until all the eggplant has been cooked and drained.

Assembling the Dish:
Take your baking dish and cover the bottom with a thin layer of pasta sauce. place the fried eggplant slices into a layer along the bottom of the baking dish. Add a generous layer the cheese mixture making sure to cover all of the eggplant. add a layer of sauce. repeat the layers until you have used all the eggplant. The top layer should consist of sauce and cheese.
Cover with foil and bake at 425 for 40 minutes or until done. When the cheese has melted and begun to brown and the layers underneath are bubbling, your eggplant parmesan is done. remove from the oven and allow it to set for about 10 minutes. This allows the layers to firm up so that they cane more easily be served

Eggplant facts and tips:

Eggplant is a member of the nightshade family of plants. It was once considered to be poisonous.
Even after being cultivated as an edible vegetable, Europeans still believed that consuming the skin would cause insanity. In fact, the skin is edible but it does have a strong, bitter taste.
Eggplant comes in hundreds of varieties, colors, shapes and sizes. The purple skinned variety is the one that most people probably know. It is the most common variety in the US and much of Europe.

Sexing your eggplant:

No, this has nothing to do with a kinky use for eggplant. Sexing an eggplant means being able to determine whether the fruit is male or female.
Why should you care about the gender of your eggplant? Female eggplants have more seeds than males. Seeds make for a more bitter taste and a higher absorption of oil. Eggplants love to suck up oil when they are being fried or sauteed. Females will absorb more than males.

In some dishes, the bitter female is preferred. This would especially true in some Greek and Middle Eastern recipes.
In an eggplant pamesan the male is a better choice. It will have a milder flavor that will blend better with the cheese flavors. It will also soak up less oil while frying and have a less heavy, oily texture.

Some people find eggplant to be harsh on the stomach. For those people the male eggplant  may be easier to digest. Personally, I always prefer a male fruit. It is milder and blends better in a dish like this without over powering the other flavors.

So, how does one sex an eggplant, a question I'm sure many of you have asked many times.

To determine the sex of your eggplant, look at the bottom end opposite the stem. If there is an indentation, like a navel, it is a female. The male's bottom should feel smooth.
Another way to sex an eggplant is by weight. If you pick up two fruits approximately the same size, the lighter one is usually male.
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