Eggplant Parmesan

Perhaps not a dish for the children, certainly I'm thinking my vegetarian friends out there might try this one. I haven't had eggplant parmesan in ages. I had forgotten it was so good. I decided to use a Cook's Illustrated recipe. Unless you are a member of Cook's Illustrated online, you may not be able to see this recipe. It's a little a-traditional in that the eggplant is baked instead of fried. I'm putting the cart before the horse. 
First step, salt and drain the moisture out of the eggplant slices. Turns out to be a very important step. CI uses a homemade sauce. I think I'll stick with mine. You can use whatever tomato sauce you like, I don't think it will ruin the dish. We made a conscious decision not to use meat. As I said, slice salt and drain the eggplant. After a good amount of moisture drains out of the eggplant, squeeze slices between paper towels. I laid them flat unlayered and pressed them between layers of paper towels. Standard breading applies (flour, egg, bread crumbs). CI bakes the breaded slices. They seemed like they'd be ok. However, I didn't have a rig big enough to hold all the slice, and time was of the essence, so I fried the half that didn't go in the oven. Then, fried the ones that came out of the oven because they hadn't baked the requisite amount of time.  Once that's done, assemble with sauce, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses and bake until "golden brown and delicious" (350 for 20-30 minutes). 
Serve with a wonderful wine, a salad and perhaps spaghetti or garlic bread; in other words your choice of Italian side accompaniments. 
YUM!

Macaroni Grill Recipe Secret

We took an unplanned hiatus from blogging - although not from cooking. I have a backlog of things to post. I'll get started with the recipe that came "in the mail".  I bought a cookbook at the Little River Elementary school book fair America's Most Wanted Recipes. Recipes from major chain restaurants. Well, not the actual recipes, knock offs, but very close. Wanting to do something different for dinner, I made this one. I thought it would be too lemony with the amount of lemon juice it called for. I cut the lemon juice in half and upped the white wine. Even with that, the sauce still had 'pucker' to it. I've never had the original MG version.


MACARONI GRILL'S SCALOPPINE di POLLO
Lemon Butter Sauce:
  4 ounces lemon juice
  2 ounces white wine
  4 ounces heavy cream
  1 pound (4 sticks) butter

6 to 8 (3-ounce) chicken breasts, pounded thin
Oil and butter for sauteing chicken
1/2 to 3/4 cup flour, seasoned with salt and pepper, for dredging
6 ounces pancetta, cooked
12 ounces mushrooms, sliced
12 ounces artichoke hearts, sliced
1 tablespoon capers
1 pound cappellini pasta, cooked
Chopped parsley, for garnish

To make the sauce: Heat the lemon juice and white wine in a
saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and reduce by one-third.
Add cream and simmer until mixture thickens (3 to 4 minutes).
Slowly add butter until completely incorporated. Season with salt
and pepper. Remove from heat and keep warm.

To make chicken and pasta: Cook pasta and drain. Heat a small
amount of oil and two tablespoons butter in a large skillet. Dredge
chicken in flour and saute in pan, turning once, until brown and
cooked through. Remove chicken from pan and add to pan remaining
ingredients. Heat until mushrooms soften and are cooked; add
chicken back to pan.

To serve: Place cooked pasta on each plate. Add half of butter
sauce to chicken mixture and toss. Taste and adjust, adding more
sauce if needed. Place chicken mixture over pasta. Garnish with
parsley. Alternately, mix pasta and chicken mixture together. Toss
with butter sauce.

Source: The Secret Recipe Forum http://www.recipesecrets.net/forums