Parmigiana, Ada Parellada's recipe

The Semproniana chef, Ada Parellada, makes us a dish of Italian tradition that triumphs at Catalan tables: parmigiana.

Ingredients

• Three or four eggplants
• A mozzarella
• 150 g of parmesan cheese
• A tablespoon of oregano or Mediterranean herbs
• Olive oil
• Salt

For the tomato paste

• 1 kg of canned natural tomatoes
• Two cloves of garlic
• A bay leaf
• Olive oil
• Salt

The recipe, step by step

• We peel the eggplants and cut them into slices. We grease a baking tray with oil and arrange the eggplants on it, season them with salt, and drizzle them with oil. We bake them for between 10 and 15 minutes at 180 ºC.
• We make the concentrated tomato sauce. In the pan, we put the tomato, the sliced garlic cloves, the bay leaf, a generous drizzle of oil, and salt. We cook it slowly, covered, for a good two hours, until it is well concentrated. As we cook it, we crush the tomatoes so they break down, and we stir it.
• At the base of a baking tray, we put a layer of tomato paste –not too much, because it is very intense–. We cover it with a layer of eggplant, tomato paste, Mediterranean herbs or oregano, parmesan cheese, and sliced mozzarella. We continue making layers like this until we finish with eggplant. We cover it with parmesan cheese and bake it for about 15 minutes at 190 ºC until it is golden brown.
• We make layers of eggplant, mozzarella, parmesan cheese, tomato sauce, and basil. We finish with cheese. Once done, we bake it for 20 minutes at 190ºC so the parmesan gratinates and the parmigiana recovers its temperature.