Eggplant and Chicken Parm

For some reason today I felt the urge to have eggplant. I was going to go to Russo's and pick up an order of their Eggplant Lasagna. Then I decided, why? I could make it myself. :) So, I went down to the supermarket, bought myself an eggplant and I decided to make Eggplant Parm. The recipe I used was kind of a conglomerate of all the different cooking shows/books I've watched and read.

After making my own sauce for the last couple of years, I got used to the taste of freshly made sauce versus the kind you get from a jar. Don't get me wrong most will do just fine, but I love the taste of fresh garlic and onions with a nice marinara. The sauce is basically comprised of garlic, onion, tomato paste, crushed tomatos with salt and pepper to taste. Since I like some spice, I added some crushed red pepper.

The breading technique I use is based off an episode of Martha Stewart I watched a few years ago. After watching the episode, I have used it ever since. I wasn't initially going to add chicken, but I had a frozen chicken breast that I wanted to use, and I didn't know if the boyfriend would go for a completely vegetarian type of meal.

So I cut the eggplant into medallions, laid them on a baking tray, salted them and let them sweat to get rid of the bitter taste. Next was the chicken, I thinly sliced it on a biased and let it soak in some milk. Thirty minutes later it was time to fry everything up.

I layered the eggplant with ricotta cheese, chicken and marinara sauce. I then topped it off with mozzeralla cheese to bake for 45 minutes. :)

The end result! Yummy! This was very easy to make. A little time intensive, but the end product was definitely worth it. :)