Eggplant Caprese

This dish is a cross between a caprese salad (featuring tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil) and eggplant parmesan (featuring fried eggplant). It came about mostly because I saw some very pretty eggplants in my grocery store and wanted to make something with them. Since it's hot, though, I didn't want to make eggplant parm because I didn't want to turn the oven on. And so eggplant caprese was born.

Notes: Everything about this dish celebrates the flavors of summer. Use the freshest eggplants and tomatoes you can find. And don't skimp on the fresh mozzarella! Nothing substitutes for it. The beauty of this dish is its simplicity. When you use few ingredients, make sure they're good ones.

This recipe serves two people, but it could be easily doubled to feed four. It will just take a little longer to fry all the eggplant.

Traditional caprese salad calls for basil leaves, but since I had homemade pesto, I figured a little play on the original wouldn't hurt.

It's a show stopper, so if you want to impress you friends, make them this dish!

Food as fashion

Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
1 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 large tomatoes
1 ball fresh mozzarella
2-3 teaspoons of pesto (use homemade if you have it!)
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil for frying

Directions:

In a medium bowl, whisk together milk and flour to make a wet batter. Pour the cornmeal into a pie plate or cake pan. Add salt, pepper, and oregano to the cornmeal and mix to combine.

Slice the eggplant into 1/2-1/4 inch rounds. Dunk each round into the wet batter, shake off the excess, then coat the round with cornmeal. Put the breaded eggplant rounds on either a large plate or cooling rack. When all the rounds are breaded, put them in the fridge for about 10 minutes.

While the eggplant is chilling, slice the tomatoes into thick slices. Pour oil into a large skillet and heat on medium high. Test the oil by sprinkling a little cornmeal in it. If if floats and starts to bubble, the oil is the right temperature. Take the eggplant out of the fridge and fry a few slices at a time, approximately 3 minutes on each side, until they are golden brown. Drain the rounds by laying them on a plate lined with a paper towel.

When you put the last batch of eggplant in the pan, slice the mozzarella and pull the pesto out of the fridge. When the eggplant is done, layer the cheese, eggplant, and tomatoes on a plate and top with pesto. Serve and enjoy!