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Woodfired Aubergine Parmigiana

Woodfired Aubergine Parmigiana – a traditional Italian dish made with a shallow or deep-fried sliced aubergines, layered with cheese and tomato sauce, then baked. It’s delicious served with lamb but also a great main course choice for your vegetarian friends. Also very time friendly as you can make it in advance before baking it later in the oven.

Here’s the recipe for what we did on this week’s #woodfiredweekly – do check out the video and subscribe to our youtube channel; we’d love it if you can help us up our numbers.

Woodfired Aubergine Parmigiana – Ingredients

1 large red onion, finely chopped

1 large red pepper, deseeded and cut into small dice

2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped

1tbsp fresh oregano, finely chopped

400g tin chopped tomatoes

Olive oil

2 aubergines, cut into 5mm slices

100g parmesan cheese, grated

300g mozzarella, torn into small pieces

Fresh basil

Seasalt & ground black pepper

Woodfired Aubergine Parmigiana – Oven

Oven state – 3-4 Mississippi – with small fire burning

Door – ajar

Useful to have a Tuscan Grill or griddle plate and a heat deflector to keep the fire in one place and lift the flames up for better grilling from above

Woodfired Aubergine Parmigiana – Method

  1. Put a little olive oil in a frying pan and add the onion, red pepper, garlic and oregano. Cook in the oven, stirring from time to time until soft but not browned.
  2. Add the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, bring to a boil and simmer until thickened.
  3. Put the aubergine slices in a large bowl and add a sprinkling of salt and enough olive oil to coat the slices.
  4. Cook on the pre-heated griddle Tuscan grill until tender, adding more oil if needed.
  5. To assemble, drizzle the bottom of an oven-proof with olive oil then layer the aubergine, tomato sauce, fresh basil leaves and grated parmesan, seasoning well as you go, until all the ingredients are used up. End with a layer of parmesan then top with the mozzarella.
  6. Cook in the oven with the door ajar and a small flame over the top for about 15 minutes until the cheese is bubbling and the top is brown.

Woodfired Aubergine Parmigiana – Wine Suggestions

A Valpolicella from Northern Italy would be lovely and probably a first choice but any Italian red like Chianti Classico or a Montepulciano D’Abruzzo also a nice match.