Not so easy to prepare… And of course, the quality of the tomatoes and the parmigiano are ESSENTIAL!

Ingredients:

– 1 red mid-size onion
– 4 spoonfuls extra virgin olive oil
– more olive oil for frying
– 1 kg (approx 2 lbs) red romano tomatoes
– a big fistful of fresh basil leaves
– salt
– 2 nice firm long eggplants
– 1 egg
– grated parmigiano
– bread crumbs  (Cristiana reveals no quantity)

Preparation:

-Prepare a tomatoe sauce. Here is how:
Mince all ingredients but the eggplan and cook on low fire for about half hour (could vary slightly based on how watery the tomatoes are), then just blend.
Your tomato sauce is ready!
Now to the eggplants: slice lenghtwise, about 50 mm thick (about the thickness of your little finger, unless you are Mike Tyson or Tinkerbell), then roll slices in flour and fry them in olive oil on both sides, just til they become golden.
Rest slices on paper towel.
Lay your slices in a baking pan of about 20x30cm (slightly smaller than an A4 paper sheet).
Cover with a layer of tomatoe sauce.
Now here is Cristiana’s trick:
beat the egg, spread it over the tomatoe sauce. Then sprinkle  a layer of parmigiano over it.
One more layer of eggplant/sauce/egg/parmigiano..
..and one more. At least 3 layers altogother, ending with a top layer of sauce.
Cover with bread crumbs and some butter flakes here and there.
Bake for 30 min. at 180 degrees Celsius.
Farenheit….? Any suggestions?