Scott Conant’s Eggplant Parm Towers ✨

Not your mama’s eggplant parm! 👏👏

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Eggplant Parm Towers
Recipe courtesy of Scott Conant
Level: Easy
Total: 40 min
Active: 30 min
Yield: 2 to 3 servings

Ingredients
6 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano
Pinch red pepper flakes
Kosher salt
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups tomato sauce, store-bought or homemade
2 medium eggplants
1 bunch fresh basil
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium saucepan, combine 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, the onion, garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt. Sauté over medium heat until the onions soften, 5 to 8 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, to cook out the raw flavor, about 1 minute Add the tomato sauce and salt to taste, stirring to combine. Let cook about 20 minutes for the flavors to meld together.

Meanwhile, slice the eggplant into 1-inch-thick circles. In a large sauté pan, heat the remaining 4 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Once hot add the eggplant slices and season with salt. Fry until brown on one side and most of the olive oil is absorbed by the eggplant, 6 to 8 minutes. Flip the slices and fry 2 to 3 minutes more. Cover the pan with a lid or foil and roast in the oven until the eggplant is tender, about 10 minutes.

To build the towers, on a serving plate, place one eggplant circle. Top with a layer of tomato sauce, torn basil leaves and grated Parmesan. Repeat 3 more times to make a stack with 4 layers. Top the stack with a basil sprig. Repeat with the remaining eggplant slices.

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We got an eggplant pico. This is not my mother’s eggplant parm. With all due respect, mom, I love you to death. This is a little bit different. So, what we’re going to do is we are going to slice this eggplant in two about 1 in slices. This is inspired by a post that I saw online. Frank Pzenzano, the unknown chef. Everybody loves Frank. I love Frank. We got the olive oil in the pan. A few gugs of oil, if you will. I’m going to turn that on high and we’re going to put this directly inside the oil. And we’re just going to let it fry nice and brown. Beautiful. Beautiful. A little bit of salt. Plenty of salt. Eggplant does two things. It absorbs all the salt. It also absorbs all the oil. I’m going to start flipping them over. Get this nice color on both sides. I’m going to put the aluminum foil right over this hot pan. I’m going to take a little nap. You see the steam escaping there? That’s what we want. 350°ree oven, 10 minutes. So, this tomato sauce for the eggplant parm. I like a really kind of concentrated tomato flavored sauce. So, I got some onions here. I’m just going to dice them. Extravirgin olive oil in this pot directly in the pan. I’m going to add some sliced garlic to this. Little bit of fresh oregano, not too much. Little bit of salt. And I’m going to add a pinch of crushed red pepper as well. I want these flavors to kind of intermingle. I want these onions to cook. I’m going to add a nice a nice generous amount of this tomato paste. It adds a tremendous amount of fresh tomato flavor. I have this tomato sauce, sartano tomatoes. I’m going to add this directly to this. Just let that be exactly what it is. This should cook about 20 minutes or so. These are cooked beautifully. This is what we want. We want that kind of moist roasted flavor profile. That’s what we want. I’m just going to cook this a little more to crisp up the exterior. I really feel like I’m in my grandmother’s kitchen right now. This is what it smells like. Look at that. That’s beautiful. So, I got this eggplant. I’m going to put it on a paper towel to get some of that residual extra-virgin olive oil off. I got my first layer of eggplant. Just a little sauce spooned over the top here. Sprig of fresh basil. And so, an eggplant parm to me is eggplant, tomato, parmesan cheese, fresh basil. Some people really love the breading, some people don’t. For me, this is the spirit, the essence, and like the concentration of all things eggplant parm. Kind of functional garnish on top here. Here we go. And you see this is nicely concentrated. So, it’s not too much liquid kind of flowing all over the plate because it it has a nice concentration of flavor. And it just becomes this delicious mound of yumminess. I think Frank’s going to be happy with that. I think even my mom is going to be good with