Eggplant Parmigiana Recipe

 

 

IItalian cuisine offers much more than the well-loved pizza and pasta. beautifully demonstrates how simple ingredients can create something utterly delicious. My aunt from Italy reminds me of this, who prepares a mouth-watering casserole that leaves not a single drop of sauce on the plate, much to our family's delight.

The secret to an outstanding Parmigiana lies in the eggplant preparation. By thinly slicing the vegetables, sprinkling them with salt, placing them in a colander, and weighing them down, you can draw out their natural bitterness in about an hour, leaving them wonderfully tender.

EGGPLANT PARMIGIANA - Recipe :

• 28 ounce can of whole San Marzano Tomatoes,
• 2 eggplants,
• 7 oz of mozzarella,
• 3.5 oz of grated Parmesan,
• 1 oz of olive oil,
• 2 cloves of garlic,
• 6 fresh basil leaves,
• salt and black pepper to taste 

1. Warm the olive oil in a pan. Add the crushed garlic and gently sauté on low heat. Mix in the Tomatoes, breaking them apart with a spoon.
2. Season with salt, pepper, and basil, letting it simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes until the sauce thickens.
3. Slice the eggplants about 0.4 inches thick. To remove bitterness, sprinkle them with salt and wait for 30 minutes, then rinse and pat dry with a paper towel.
4. In a pan, heat some oil and fry the eggplants in batches until each side is golden brown.
5. In an ovenproof dish, lay down a base of tomato sauce, followed by a layer of eggplant. Sprinkle Parmesan and dot pieces of mozzarella on top.
6. Continue layering until all the ingredients are used. Finish with a topping of tomato sauce and cheese.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes or until the cheese has melted and the dish is beautifully golden on top. 

NONNA BELLINO'S COOKBOOK

RECIPES FROM MY SICILIAN NONNA

DANIEL BELLINO Z

AMAZON.com 

EGGPANT PARMIGIANA

EGGPLANT PARMIGIANA

alla LIDIA

MAKING EGGPLANT PARMIGIAN

TASTY EGGPLANT PARMIGIANA

VIDEO

Veneiros Italian Pastries Frank Sinatra Favorite

 

VENEIRO'S PASTICCERIA

SINCE 1894

VENIERO'S

A circa mid-1940s photograph of Veniero’s. Pictured from left to right are Peter Veniero, the son of Veniero’s founder, Antonio Veniero; Frank Catinella, a cousin of Robert Zerilli’s father, Frank Zerilli, and a manager at the bakery; an unidentified employee; Frank Zerilli, then also a manager.Credit...Courtesy of Veniero’s

More than two million Italians arrived in New York between the late 1880s and the early 1910s, many coming through Ellis Island and most desperately poor. Large numbers settled in Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn; others headed to Lower Manhattan, in particular to Greenwich Village —  along Sullivan and Bleecker Streets — and, most famously, to the area surrounding Mulberry Street that would become the Little Italy of the Lower East Side.

Antonio Veniero, born near Sorrento in 1870, arrived in New York when he was 15 and went to work in a candy factory. He bought the building on East 11th Street in 1894 and began producing his own handmade confectionery there; when customers asked for something to go with it, he began offering espresso and biscotti. It was backbreaking work: There was no electricity; ice came in hundred-pound blocks; deliveries were made on horse-pulled carts. Pastry was baked in a coal oven in the store’s backyard, which is now part of the cafe.

Zerilli’s father, Frank, began working at Veniero’s in the 1930s and bought the business in 1970. Zerilli did weekend shifts at the bakery in the late ’70s and came on full time in 1981. He opened the back-room cafe in 1994, the year of the store’s 100th anniversary. His father died one month later. Both Zerilli and Frankie went to college before returning to work at the store but Zerilli often says to his son, “Remember, Grandpa said, ‘The best college is right here.’” He shows me a favorite photo of his father with the other Frank, Sinatra that is, taken around 1980. Sinatra, looking amiable, his arm around Zerilli’s shoulders, wears a crucifix and is holding a cigarette and a large sesame seed biscuit in the same hand. “It’s called a regina,” says Angelo Santamaria, Veniero’s head pastry chef. “Sinatra liked it crunchy.”

"Frank & Frank"

SINATRA & ZERILLI

A photograph of Frank Sinatra and Frank Zerilli, circa 1979. Sinatra is holding a Regina Pastry that Veniero’s made specially for the singer, who liked them large with a crunchy exterior.Credit...

FRANK SINATRA'S FAVORITE COOKIES

BISCOTTI REGINELLE

aka REGINA COOKIES

The QUEEN'S COOKIES

Frank Sinatra had a standing order for these tasty Sicilian Cookies, that were

whipped from Veneer's to Frank's home in Palm Springs for years.

SUNDAY SAUCE

SINATRA RECIPES

SUNDAY SAUCE - MEATBALLS

And MORE ...

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VENEIRO'S PASTICCERIA

East 11th Street - EAST VILLAGE

NEW YORK CITY

Since 1894

Do You Remember Giambones

 

The "DAPPER DON"

JOHN GOTTI with Brother PETER

And Two Asscoiates Leaves GIAMBONE'S

After a Classic Italian-American Restaurant Meal

of Baked Clams, Pasta, Sausage & Veal & Peppers

ALTHOUGH legal arguments have long echoed 
down the austere halls of the Criminal Court building 
on Centre Street, many spirited lawyerly discussions 
also occurred a few blocks east, in a dim, shoebox-sized 
Italian restaurant named Giambone. Now, as workers
at Centre Street and other nearby courthouses dig into 
their fall workload, they are discovering that this 
neighborhood fixture is gone.

Located on a narrow stretch of Mulberry Street 
two blocks south of Canal, Giambone, a virtual 
clubhouse for lawyers, judges, cops and defendants 
with a history as rich as its clam sauce, closed its 
doors in June. It was a victim of 9/11 and the 
sluggish economy, which all but eliminated the 
evening dinner crowd.

Originally housed in a marble-floored basement, 
which served it well during Prohibition, the restaurant 
was opened in 1914 by a strapping fellow named 
Italo Susi, who went by the nickname Giambone. 
In 1935, after the upstairs tenant, a Western Union 
office, left, Italo moved his eatery aboveground and, 
along with his son Tony, built the place into a bustling, neighborhood joint.

Within a stone's throw of various courthouses, Giambone 
was a natural choice for people who worked at the 
courthouse or merely visited it from time to time, 
like the mobster John Gotti. Tony Susi, now 82, 
still remembers his introduction to the once-Teflon don.

''The goons came over and said, 'Would you accept 
John Gotti?' I said, 'Of course.' Then they said, 'Would 
you wait on him personally?' So I waited on him. We 
got along pretty well, too. I spoke to him in Italian.'' 
Mr. Gotti ordered the calamari and left a $125 tip.

Continue reading the main story

Over the years, other celebrities passed through, 
including the comedian Pat Cooper, who wanted to kiss 
Mr. Susi upon tasting his Linguine alla Sinatra , a house specialty, and John F. Kennedy Jr., who nursed his wounds 
at Giambone after failing the bar exam for the second time.

But the true lure of Giambone remained its homey 
ambiance. The décor -- rickety tables, taxidermied fish 
on the wall -- was as unfashionable as your grandfather's basement, and nearly as dusty. The menu was varied 
but never fancy. And Mr. Susi, by all accounts a gracious 
host, presided over a cast of regulars that included a fellow named Louie Beans, a struggling lounge singer named 
Detie Baxter, and Louis Martine, a big, garrulous 
prankster.

Asked about the many stunts he pulled at Giambone, Mr. Martine, a retired lawyer, fondly recalled the sweltering 
day he sent two colleagues on a goose chase in search of a Chinese tailor rumored to sell cheap suits. ''By the time 
the guys got back, they were walking swimming pools,'' 
he said with a laugh. ''They were mad as hell.''

There is another reason to mourn Giambone. Except for 
a half-Italian, half-Chinese place next door, it was the 
last Italian restaurant on Mulberry Street below Canal.

Next month the space will reopen as a Chinese furniture 
store, furthering the Asian dominance of an area that, 
according to Mr. Susi, once housed seven Italian restaurants.

Mr. Susi retired in 1990, selling the restaurant to a 
man named Joseph Elias. Bob Jenny, a spokesman 
for New York City Management, the owner of the 
building, said that Mr. Elias informed the company 
last spring that he was closing the struggling business. 
Mr. Elias could not be reached for comment.

For its many former customers, the bottom line is that the restaurant will be missed. ''It's left a hole in the neighbor-
hood,''' said Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney and a longtime regular. ''Now, we go to Odeon or Forlini's.''

DISHES The DON LOVED to EAT

BAKED CLAMS

CALAMARI

PASTA

SAUSAGE MEATBALLS BRACIOLE

and SUNDAY SAUCE ITALIAN GRAVY

GET THE RECIPES

.

Spaghetti Meatballs Recipe Abruzzese

 

EMELIA & Her PAST

SPAGHETTI CHITTARA con POLETTINI

EMELIA Makes MEATBALLS

With HOMEMADE SPAGHETTI CHITTARA

ABRUZZESE

"MANGIA BENE" !!!

NONNA'S COOKBOOK

RECIPES From MY SICILIAN NONNA

AMAZON.com

ALESSIA Helps NONNA EMILIA

EMILIA PLATES The PASTA