Spicy Old Man
Culinary Confessions of an Old Cook and Fledgling Author
A blog that looks at everyday recipes and the stories behind them
I’m Jim Boatwright, and I’ve been cooking my whole life. There’s something wonderfully fulfilling about cooking a meal for the people you love, family or friends, even when they’re both. Don’t smirk. It happens.
This blog celebrates the everyday cook, that miracle worker who manages to create good-tasting meals every single day.
I have a motto that’s evolved over the years. And here it is:
Ordinary food prepared extraordinarily well
Well, that and a famous observation by Snoopy in the musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” As Charlie Brown gives Snoopy his supper the adorable dog goes into a huge production number called “Suppertime.” Charlie asks him why he has to make such a fuss about his meals to which Snoopy famously and wisely said, and I freely paraphrase:
What’s wrong with making mealtime a celebration?
I wholeheartedly agree. So, this blog provides simple, easy-to-use recipes to make a family dinner a celebration. Then I’ll tell you the story behind the recipe. I call them “Side Table Tales.” And that’s when the meal gets personal, and the fun begins. My recipes are curated below.
Recipes
Quick-N-Easy Peach Cobbler
My hometown, Gilbert, South Carolina, is the home of the Lexington County Peach Festival, a Fourth of July tradition since 1958 when the Gilbert Community Club organized the original celebration.
So, as a nod to my hometown and their legendary Peach Festival, and in honor of our country’s independence, I give you my mother’s Quick ‘N’ Easy Peach Cobbler recipe. But first, my Side Table Tale.
Peaches in a Ditch
Oh, to hold the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into the round jubilance of peach.
Lee-Young Li
In the poem “From Blossom”
Homer Snelgrove is my first cousin and truly one of my heroes. I have looked up to him, admired him, and wanted to be like him since I was five years old. But, in reality nobody can be like Homer. He’s one of a kind.
When my dad died quite unexpectedly, it threw a lot of plans into the air. Not the least of which was the well-laid plan for Homer to join my dad’s car business with the understanding he’d take it over when Dad retired. Only Dad didn’t retire. He died before retirement.
After his hitch in the Navy, Homer, with the encouragement of my mom, took over the business even though Daddy had already died and the business had been shuttered for several months. It was a brave and daring move for both my mom and Homer. From the time I was old enough to sit on a piano bench, my Dad, God bless him, knew I was not going to take over the business. But that didn’t keep me from hanging around the shop as a kid, and when Homer took over I spent as much time in the shop as I could. Since I was in college at the time, I had all summer to hang out in the shop. Those summers were some of the best times of my life.
In 1968, schools across the state were required to desegregate. Gilbert High School was no exception. In that group of incoming students was Tommy Lee Watson. If the government searched for the ideal young man to be among the first Black students to attend Gilbert, they couldn’t have found a better one. From the moment Tommy Lee set foot on campus, he was, at least from my perspective, widely accepted, even well-liked. That he was charming and handsome didn’t hurt. Homer and Tommy Lee had been friends for years. I don’t know how they met as they went to different schools. But then again, it seemed like everybody in the Gilbert and Leesville area knew Homer.
Homer had enlisted Tommy Lee to help him in the garage after Tommy Lee got off his regular job. Being home on summer break, I spent a lot of time at the shop with Homer and Tommy Lee. It was late afternoon that hot summer day. Tommy Lee was elbow-deep in some engine. Homer was welding some contraption for a local farmer’s tractor while I sanded a car to be painted. For days muscular tractors lumbered by on the road next to the shop pulling large trailers loaded with freshly picked peaches from the acres of orchards south of the crossroads where the shop sat. As the last trailer of the day was chugging along, Tommy Lee noticed the tractor pulled to the side of the road and stopped. The driver quickly hopped out of his seat, walked to the trailer, pulled one of the full baskets of peaches out, and, looking both ways first, then placed the basket in the ditch between the shop and the road. He then hopped back on the tractor and drove off.
Immediately, Tommy Lee found Homer to tell him what he’d just seen.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Tommy Lee asked Homer as he was stowing his welding gear.
“I reckon they stealin’ peaches,” Homer said with his hands on his hips in that inimical style of his.
“Man, that’s not right,” Tommy Lee shot back.
By that time, I’d wandered into the shop, and Homer wasted no time telling me about the purloined fruit.
“I got an idea,” Homer said, flashing that mischievous grin as he tossed his dark brown hair out of his eyes.
“Let’s get the basket out of the ditch. When that dude comes back, they’ll be gone. That’ll teach him not to steal peaches,” Homer suggested. But Tommy Lee’s dancing brown eyes told us he had thought of something a bit devilish.
“What if we take the peaches out of the basket, then put a note in the basket that says, “Thou shalt not steal. Then put the basket back in the ditch,”
“Yeah, but then wouldn’t we be stealin’ them then?” Homer asked.
“Looks to me like that dude threw those peaches away. You might say we just pickin’ up trash.”
Oh, yes. Philosophers and ethicists would argue that point, but they weren’t there that day. I took my share of the peaches to my mom who immediately asked, “Where’d these come from?”
“Don’t ask,” I said.
“Does this have anything to do with Homer?” my mom asked playfully. After all, she adored her nephew.
“Uh, kinda,” I stuttered not wanting to implicate my cousin.
“That’s what I thought. Well, I got ‘em now. I just as well do somethin’ with ‘em.”
“We could eat them,” I offered hopefully, fantasizing peach juice dripping from my chin as I bit into that delectable fruit.
“I got an idea,” Mom said with a twinkle. “I found a new recipe for Peach Cobbler and it’s real easy. I think it’s too easy. I don’t think it’ll work. So, these ill-gotten peaches will be part of a cooking experiment.”
That logic was no better than Tommy Lee’s, but somehow, it soothed our guilt slightly. Mom made the cobbler with those peaches, and it was fantastic. In fact, I’ve used it dozens of times. Its simplicity is its genius.
The guilt got the better of us in a couple of days, so Mom drove down to Sease Farm’s big warehouse, found one of the managers, handed him a twenty-dollar bill and whispered, “Here take this and put it in the till and don’t ask questions.”
I don’t make this dish without thinking about that day, my cousin Homer, and the fun we had together.
May you have someone in your life that you admire, respect, and love as much as I do Homer Snelgrove.
There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background.
“From Blossom” Li-Young Lee
Quick-N-Easy Peach Cobbler
Ingredients
2 c. fresh peaches, sliced into small wedges, about ½ inch thick
1¾ c. sugar, divided
1 c. milk
1 stick butter
1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°.
Combine peaches and ¾ cup sugar and let stand for 30 minutes. This is a critically important step. It pulls the juices out of the peach and that juice becomes the liquid for the cobbler.
Sift together flour, remaining cup of sugar, and baking powder.
Add milk and stir briskly—lumps will remain.
Place the butter in a baking dish. Put the baking dish in the oven until the butter melts.
Pour the milk/flour mixture into the baking dish and top with the peaches along with the wonderful juices rendered by the sugar.
Bake for 45 minutes.
Onion Soup
Mending Hurt Feelings with Onion Soup
Let me start this story and its recipe with an explanation. This is a very simple recipe that was created by my son when he was 10 or 11 years old. Even though it’s quite good please don't judge it on its culinary sophistication; rather see it as an example of the healing power food and food preparation can bring. It's a short and simple story, but it speaks volumes about parenting, kids, cooking, cooperation, and love this is a recipe for parenting as much as it is for preparing food.
When my son, Drew, was young, maybe 10 or 11 years old, he took an interest in cooking and would occasionally help me prepare dinners. In fact, we joked that he was my little prep chef. We had great fun working together. We have always been and continue to be close. Cooking together deepened our bond then, and it still does even though he's a grown man and a terrific cook.
Well, as youngsters tend to do, Drew had done some thing that got him into trouble—nothing serious, nothing big in the grand scheme of things, but to a young boy, it was serious. I don't remember what he did, nor what the punishment was, but I do remember that Drew was, at first, angry, and that led to him being sullen. He sulked around the house for a while, then went outside to shoot basketball. I watched from the kitchen window as he worked out his frustration by shooting hoops. And as I watched him, I thought about how hard it is to be a parent—to inflict frustration and pain on someone you love with all your heart, and to do so because you love the person with all your heart. Tough love. I hate it, but it is what has to be done sometimes. So, I watched Drew suffering the pains of tough love; I suffered more.
Finally, I knew it was time to mend the relationship, not by sweeping away the punishment, nor by minimizing what had happened, but by moving forward. So, I went out to where he was playing and silently joined him. Of course, Drew is quite athletic, and I am most certainly not, but I shot some balls, and we played something of a brief one-on-one game. After a bit, I broke the long silence. “It would be my honor if you'd come in and cook with me.”
Drew stop playing, looked at me, and said simply, “Okay.” It wasn’t a big dramatic moment, but it was one that started the mending process. Nothing more was needed.
“Is it okay if I make up a recipe?” Drew asked, taking me a bit by surprise.
“Of course you can. Tell you what, I'll prep, you cook. What are we making?”
“Onion soup,” he proclaimed confidently.
We went inside, became lost in cooking, began talking, and healed.
There are scores and scores of onion soup recipes, and I'd love to say that on that afternoon a unique onion soup was born—it might have been, but I'm not sure. But I am sure of two things: (1) My son invented this recipe with minimal help from me. I have included his original recipe without any changes, and (2) Drew came in that afternoon, and we cook together, and our hearts were mended. The kitchen is still the heart of the home.
Onion Soup
Ingredients
2-3 slices bacon
3 lbs. onions, either thinly sliced
2 tbs. fresh thyme (or 1 tbs. dried)
½ c. white wine
1 tbs. salt
8 c. chicken broth
¼ c. rice wine vinegar
Instructions
Fry bacon in a Dutch oven or stock pot until crisp. Remove bacon, chop into small bits, and reserve the drippings. Alternatively, the bacon could be cut into small pieces before frying. The results are similar.
Add the onions to the bacon drippings and cook until the onions are nearly caramelized (12-15 minutes). The onions will begin to turn golden on the edges.
Add wine to deglaze the pot and continue to cook until the wine is almost completely evaporated.
Slowly add the chicken broth to the onion mixture. Reduce heat and allow soup to simmer for 30 minutes.
Add the thyme and salt.
Add the rice vinegar and continue to simmer for 10-15 minutes.
Add crumbled bacon bits to the soup.
Onion Mushroom Risotto
Onions Always Make Me Cry
The Side Table Tale for this recipe is a full-blown short story, ‘Onions Always Make Me Cry.’ It’s a bit long, but I’m passionate about the truth behind this story and hope you take the time to read it. ‘Onions Always Make Me Cry’ is the touching story of a top-notch chef, Mateo, and his beloved prep chef, Nicholás, who has sought asylum in the United States after fleeing the brutality of his home country. Nicholás, realizing that he might be deported, leaves the restaurant and goes into hiding in a local church. He narrowly escapes being caught of officials. Fearful that he will ultimately be detained and incarcerated for resisting deportation, Nicholás seeks the assistance of his close friend, Mateo. The two devise a scheme for protecting and hiding Nicholás, but the plan falls apart as immigration officials relentlessly pursue Nicholás. Mateo, with the help of a cadre of colorful characters, come together to devise a plan for Nicholás’ escape. The absurd plan is daring, audacious, risky, and a even slightly humorous. And yes, risotto is involved.
Onion Mushroom Risotto
Ingredients
3 tbs. butter, divided
1 tbs. extra virgin olive oil
1 cup diced onion
2 cloves garlic, diced
½ cup finely diced mushrooms
1 ½ cups of Arborio rice
½ cups white wine
4-5 cups chicken broth, divided
½ cup heavy whipping cream
Instructions
Heat a large skillet on a medium high heat.
Add 2 tbs. butter and cook until foamy.
Add the olive oil and heat until hot blending the butter and oil together.
Add the onions and cook until they are translucent, and they begin to brown slightly (about 6-8 minutes).
Add the mushrooms and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes or until the mushrooms are soft.
Add the garlic, cooking only until the garlic becomes fragrant (30-40 seconds), being careful not to burn the garlic.
Add the Arborio rice and cook until the rice begins to become golden, stirring constantly (at least 5-7 minutes).
Add the wine and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Allow the wine to reduce to half.
Slowly begin adding the chicken broth. Add ½ to 1 cup at a time slowly, stirring constantly.
Reduce heat to a medium simmer.
As you add broth, stir until it is incorporated into the rice.
Continue adding broth ½ to 1 cup at a time and continue stirring until all the broth has been added.
Cook the rice until it is tender (at least 20-25 minutes) stirring constantly.
Slowly add the cream, stirring constantly.
Continue simmering and stirring until the risotto creams. It will be thick, and the grains of rice will have softened completely. If not, keep simmering and stirring until it has.
As a finishing touch, a tablespoon of butter can be added. Allow butter to melt, then incorporate it into the mixture.
Cajun Pasta
Orange Sauce, Love and Getting It Right
The recipe for so-called “Cajun Pasta” is quite a misnomer. While certain elements of this dish are slightly Cajun (making a roux, using “Cajun seasonings,” and using shrimp), this is basically just another pretty good generic recipe that probably never touched Louisiana (as Cajuns prefer rice rather than pasta), but it has a story—a story about a Dad wanting to get it right for his little girl. When my daughter was young, say eight or nine years old, I once asked her what she wanted for dinner. You see, when they were young, both my children were asked to suggest one idea for a meal for the week. We were all so busy that I would plan the entire week's menu on the weekend and then head to the grocery store, where I would have one hour to buy everything we needed for the week.
My daughter requested the orange sauce. I asked her to explain. She sighed and said, “You know the pasta with the orange sauce!” Well, I had no idea. I knew I had never thought of combining pasta and oranges. Even in the poor and difficult years, I would never think about an orange is the pasta. So I asked, “Are you sure? What's that?” “You know, the pasta with the orange sauce,” she said again. Her repeating the request did not contribute to a greater understanding. So, I asked her to tell me more about it. It was only when she said it had shrimp in it that I realized what she wanted. The tomato paste added to the creamy mixture, turned the whole mixture a very pale shade of . . . orange; hence the orange sauce.
I still smile about the orange sauce, but it warms my heart that we had those times—times of difficulty and struggle, but times which were defined by love, respect, and trying to get it right. Parents are always trying to get it right. And when we take the time to listen carefully, lovingly, patiently, and gently, we get it right every time.
Cajun Pasta (known affectionately as, Pasta with the Orange Sauce)
Ingredients
1 16 oz. package fettuccine, uncooked
1 ½ c. water
½ lb. unpeeled fresh shrimp
2 skinned and boned chicken breasts, cut into ¼ inch strips
½ lb. sausage of your choice
1 tbs. olive oil
½ c. chopped onions
½ cup sweet red bell pepper cut into thin strips (green bell pepper works)
1 clove garlic, minced
½ c. dry white wine
2 tbs. butter
1 tbs. all-purpose flour
½ c. chicken broth
1 c. heavy cream (or half and half)
1 tbs. Cajun seasonings
2 tbs. tomato paste
1 tsp. freshly cracked pepper
Instructions
Cook the fettuccine. Set aside.
Peel shrimp.
Bring water to a boil and add shrimp. Cook 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the shrimp, cool slightly.
Cook chicken and sausage in an ungreased pan. Remove from skillet and set aside.
In the same pan, heat the olive oil. Then, add the onions, garlic and peppers and cook until onions are translucent and the peppers have softened (5 to 10 minutes).
Add the wine to deglaze the skillet. Allow the wine to reduce by half.
While the skillet is still hot, add the butter. Heat until the butter is foamy.
Add the flour, blending the flour into the hot melted butter until incorporated. It will appear thick.
Bring the flour and butter mixture to a khaki color. Slowly add the chicken broth and stir until blended and thick. (This is the basis for making a roux.) Slowly add cream, seasonings, tomato paste, and cracked pepper to skillet. Simmer for 30 minutes.
Add the chicken, sausage, and shrimp and cook until heated.
Combine the fettuccine with the chicken mixture.
Rice Pilau
Junior League to ChatGPT
There are three types of cookbooks that you can bank on: church ladies, Junior League, and elementary schools. Of course, cookbooks are pretty much passé now, but back in the day, many of us depended on our favorite cookbooks.
In the 70’s and early 80’s when computers were new and all us teachers were learning how to use those fancy newfangled computers. In those days, schools used Apple IIe; we couldn’t envision how computers and the yet-to-be born internet would forever change the recipe landscape. Now, we simply enter the list of the key ingredients, and AI spits out a variety of tantalizing options.
But back then recipe books abounded.
The elementary school I was assigned to after my sabbatical year had just printed their faculty cookbook. In it, along with a raft of delicious traditional southern dishes, was a dish I was unfamiliar with: Charleston Rice Purlough. I fell in love with the richness of the blended flavor of smoky bacon, sweet onions, tangy tomatoes and tomato paste.
Somehow in one of our many moves and after several years, the old cookbook went missing. When I tried to recreate the dish from memory it was off—not bad, but not right. By this time, I had access to the internet, but there were no results for Charleston Rice Purlough in my internet search. (It was the early 2000s and the comprehensiveness of the cyber world was not yet developed.)
This spring (May 2025) as my wife and I were planning on our annual pilgrimage to Folly Beach near Charleston, South Carolina, I got a wild hair to make Charleston Rice Purlough for the family during our trip. I took a chance and ran the name through ChatGPT, and this time AI came through. The problem was the teacher who submitted the recipe used an incorrect spelling for Rice Pilau, which is understandable since pur-low is the way you say pilau. So naming it Purlough probably meant she’d learned the recipe from her family and heard them saying the word and not seeing it. After all, most of that generation of southern cooks cooked from memory, instinct, and what was in your pantry. When this teacher put the recipe down on paper, she spelled it like she’d heard it. Reasonable enough.
As I fussed and fumed over the dish, creating a vegetarian version for my step-daughter while preparing the recipe below, I came to realize that cooking is my love language.
Rice Pilau (pronounced pur-low)
Ingredients
1-1 ½ cups uncooked, long grain rice (I like basmati, but any will work)
salt, as needed
4 strips of bacon
bacon drippings (the grease from frying the bacon) or 1 tbs. butter or ¼ cup oil
1 onion, diced
½ yellow pepper, diced
½ red pepper, diced
¼ cup celery, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, diced finely
2 cans fire-roasted tomatoes (regular diced tomatoes will work)
¼-½ cups of tomato paste
½ cup white wine
chicken broth, as needed
¼-½ tsp. pepper flakes (or to taste)
pepper, to taste
¼-½ tsp. cayenne pepper (or to taste)
Andouille sausage, cut into small rounds and cooked thoroughly
cooked shrimp, if desired
Ingredients
Cook the rice in boiling, salted water until tender, about twenty minutes.
Fry bacon. Allow to cool, then crumble.
Heat the bacon drippings (or butter or oil) until hot.
Sauté onions, bell peppers, and celery until the vegetables are soft (5 to 8 minutes).
Then add the garlic and continue sautéing until the garlic is fragrant (one minute or so).
Combine the rice and the onion mixture.
Add the fire-roasted tomatoes and stir until blended.
Add the tomato paste and blend.
Cook for around 10 to 15 minutes. The longer it cooks the thicker and better it gets.
Add the crumbled bacon.
Add the white wine.
If the pilau is stiff, add chicken broth or water.
Add pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and pinch of cayenne pepper.
Add the Andouille sausage (or any type of sausage) and shrimp.
Notes on Rice Pilau
Although it doesn't look at, this dish is pronounced pur-low. The dish is popular in the Carolinas and Georgia but originated in ancient Persia. Many cultures have their own variation of rice pilau. Some variations use seafood. Many use chopped chicken. But almost all use one or more meats, making this dish pretty close to the Louisiana-stable Jambalaya. Like Jambalaya there is no single definitive recipe. It’s a comfort food made from what you have in your kitchen. The tomato paste is critical. Be generous.
The spices in this recipe are simply suggestions. You be you.
Curried Chicken Divan
Curried Chicken Divan Meets the Catholic Church
First things first — this is one of the first dishes I ever learned to cook, and I was quite proud of it. Even though it is very simple and almost a cooking cliché, I thought I was doing something when I produced “Curried Chicken Divan.” Unlike most divan recipes, this recipe calls for curry powder. And I have to admit that this dish caused me to fall in love with curry powder.
There are dozens of curries, each with its distinctive taste, texture, and kick. But for the most part the commercially available curry powder is just fine for my modest cooking skills.
Since this was a kind of “signature dish” for me in the early years of my cooking, it was an obvious choice for a little dinner party my ex and I were having for a group of friends. All of us were just out of college (well, for me it was graduate school) and the memory of school cafeteria food lingered wearily on our insulted taste buds. So, a dinner with Curried Chicken Divan, salad, and wine did seem elegant.
We enjoyed the evening immensely and ate with abandon, completely cleaning every scrap of the Curried Chicken Divan. Just as we started clearing the table one of the guests clapped her hands over her mouth and with wide eyes exclaimed, “It’s chicken! It’s Friday! It’s Lent!”
She was right! It was the first Friday of Lent—the Friday after Ash Wednesday, but it was a Friday; it was Lent, and we all had eaten chicken—a definite no-no for good Catholics.
“But chicken’s like fish; it’s okay, I’m pretty sure,” soothed another.
“No it’s not! Chicken’s like steak. You can’t eat chicken on a Friday in Lent any more than you can eat filet mignon,” explained another.
This conversation plodded on for a while. The entire table of good, but guilty, Catholics had eaten meat on a Friday in Lent. I, being Protestant, was exempt, but that certainly did not ameliorate the situation. I made the meal. I caused those good Catholics to sin! At least my renegade Protestantism wasn’t held against me since my soul was already in a precarious state.
The discussion continued and, in the end, it was decided that we would not speak of this to any priest and would not go to confession, since we all agreed that on that night and in that city and at this table, it would be okay to eat chicken on a Friday during Lent. After all it was the first Friday, and it takes a while to get used to the whole no-meat-on-Friday thing. It was an understandable lapse. So, a papal dispensation was declared without the benefit of the Pope. Alas, the Pope was none the wiser.
Chicken Divan
(Curried Chicken Divan)
Ingredients
1 bunch of broccoli; cooked, drained, and cut into bite size pieces (frozen or fresh)
½ c. cooked chicken, cut into bite-size pieces
1-2 cans of cream of chicken soup (or if you’ve got the time make your own; see below)
½ c. mayonnaise
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
1 tbsp. curry powder
juice from one lemon
½ c. sharp cheddar cheese, grated
buttered bread crumbs
2 tbsp. butter
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Arrange cooked broccoli in a greased 9x13-inch baking dish.
Place chicken on top of the broccoli. Combine soup, mayonnaise, yogurt, curry powder and lemon juice.
Pour the soup mixture over the chicken. Sprinkle with the breadcrumbs. Dot with butter.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Basic Cream of Chicken Soup
Ingredients
3 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. flour
salt, to taste
1 ½ c. chicken broth
1 c. milk, preferably whole
½ tsp. garlic powder
Instructions
Melt the butter until it is hot and foamy.
Sprinkle the flour in the foamy butter and blend thoroughly. Continue cooking (this is a classic roux) until the mixture has a beige or khaki-color.
Slowly add the chicken broth, stirring constantly. The mixture will begin to thicken.
Slowly add enough milk to get the consistency you want. (Don’t worry if you get too much. Just let it cook down.)
Sprinkle the garlic powder over the soup when it is thick and simmering. Remove from the heat.
Eggplant Parmesan
England, Language, Great Food, and Love
My wife and I just returned from a fantastic two-week excursion to England and Scotland. The weather was perfect, a real rarity for the UK. No rain, blue skies, pleasant temperatures, and lots of glorious sunshine. For me the UK is a special place. It’s almost magical. Maybe it’s because England is my ancestral home. Maybe it’s because it’s just that charming.
Now, almost everyone knows that there’s American English and British English. And while the two are virtually the same there are those words and phrases that are different: lift= elevator; servette= napkin; lorry= truck; biscuit= cookie; and so on. In fact, that now ubiquitous “no worries” response that seemed to spring out of our digital world has its roots in British English.
And then there’s aubergine. Eggplant. I completely forgot that linguistic flip-flop when we visited Bill’s on Cheap Street in Bath. Bill’s is a thoroughly charming English pub with great food and that warm, cozy atmosphere that gives British pubs their reputation.
As my wife set her sights on scones, clotted cream, and strawberry jam—Cream Tea, I studied the menu and found an intriguing, exotic offering: Aubergine and Mozzarella Parmigiana. Baked eggplant (aubergine), Parmesan, spinach and tomato sauce topped with green basil pesto & creamy Buffalo mozzarella (wording from their menu).
As soon as our waitress placed the dish on our table and I saw eggplant, I then remembered the eggplant/aubergine word switch. The dish was vaguely an eggplant Parmesan variation. It was fabulous, but it got me thinking about my old recipe for eggplant Parmesan, so when we got home to the US, I wanted to prepare the dish to compare our Americanized version to this British variation.
I’m not too sure which I prefer, but I always get a kick out of preparing this rich dish. My daughter who lives in New York was visiting us when I made it this time, and it was especially rewarding. It reminded me again, that there is no greater joy than cooking for people you love.
Here’s the recipe and a sincere hope that you have those you love close by and can prepare this Americanized classic for them.
Eggplant Parmesan
Ingredients
2 medium eggplants, cut into ½-inch-thick round slices
salt, as needed
4 c. fresh breadcrumbs
1 tbs. dried oregano
1 tbs. dried thyme
freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
3 large eggs, beaten
4 tbs. water
4 tbs. milk
4-5 c. marinara sauce
½ c. Parmesan cheese, grated
1 lb. Mozzarella cheese, grated
Instructions
Arrange the eggplant slices on large platter and sprinkle generously with salt. Set aside for at least 15-20 minutes. This will let the bitter juices weep from the eggplant.
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Rinse the eggplant slices thoroughly. Blot the slices to dry.
Combine the breadcrumbs, oregano, and thyme in a bowl, and then season with pepper.
In another bowl, combine the egg, milk, and water together.
Dredge the eggplant slices one at a time in the egg mixture, and then dredge in the breadcrumb mixture. Shake off any excess breading and set aside. Sometimes you may need to press some additional breadcrumb mixture onto the eggplant slices if the slice isn’t coated with the breadcrumbs.
Place the breaded eggplant slices on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Flip them over and continue for 5-10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and let cool slightly.
Coat a baking dish with olive oil. Cover the bottom of the dish with ⅓ of the marinara sauce and arrange half of the eggplant over the sauce. Cover the eggplant with another ⅓ of the sauce. Sprinkle half of the Parmesan and half of the mozzarella over the sauce. Repeat with the remaining eggplant, sauce, Parmesan, and mozzarella. Bake until hot and just beginning to brown, about 30 minutes.