sweet basil penne w/ fried eggplant
I made another batch of my tomato sauce today. We got fresh basil from the farmers market today and I added a ton of it in the sauce this time around. I boiled up some penne rigate to go with the star of the plate tonight: Fried Eggplant! For the eggplant coating I made a flour mixture that had 2 parts unbleached white flour, 1 part corn starch, 1 part yellow corn meal, a few shakes of an italian spice blend and garlic salt. I soaked the sliced eggplant in salt water to leach out the bitterness eggplant seems to have. I made a egg replacer by mixing 4 tbsp ground golden flax seed and about 3/4 cup of warm water. I drained the eggplant, lightly coated them in the flour mixture, then into the flax egg replacer and then back into the flour mixture. They were shallow fried in a blend of canola oil and olive oil. Both the penne and the fried eggplant slices were covered in my homemade sauce. This was utterly amazing and still steaming in this photo.
