(bright music) - [Announcer 1] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- [Announcer 2] The following episode of "Charlotte Cooks" is brought to you by Central Piedmont Community College and viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Coming up on this episode of "Charlotte Cooks," we have our really good friend Raffaele Patrizi joining us, and he's gonna be making us some eggplant Parmesan.

You don't wanna miss this one.

(joyful music) Welcome to this edition of "Charlotte Cooks."

How are you doing, Raffaele?

- Good morning, Pamela.

I'm doing very, very well.

Thank you for asking.

- I am so glad you're here with us.

You're gonna make us some eggplant Parmesan today.

- [Raffaele] Yes, I'm doing in the real way.

- Okay, I'm really excited to see how you're gonna get this done because we have an Americanized version, and I wanna see what the real Italian version is all about.

- So eggplant Parm is originally, it's from Sicily.

It's named parmigiana originally, and then like here in the States, so it's served usually like as a lasagna, just like a piece of the middle layer.

And here in the states, like, we serve, like, it's really good, but we serve on top of spaghetti with tomato sauce.

But so we're gonna start from the tomato sauce because it's the thing that is going to take a little bit longer.

So I'm going to get some garlic, onions, some beautiful little carrots, and then parsley, basil and lastly, tomato sauce.

And then we're gonna let it simmer everything for 45 minutes.

- [Pam] And these are locally grown things, aren't they?

- Yep, everything is from local farmers.

This onion, so you see it's not completely... Like, it's fully grown, but it's a little smaller because it's been a little hotter, so the herb, like the onions to grow suffered a little bit, but these are... And what does it mean that they're smaller?

Are much more rich on flavor- - There you go- - And everything.

So we're gonna grab the garlic.

- We're gonna turn on the pot?

- Yep.

- All right.

What kind of heat do you want?

(burner clicks) - Let's do medium.

- Medium?

- Yeah, medium fire.

This is going to be, blend everything.

It's gonna be nice and smooth, so I don't need any fancy mince.

I don't need any julienne, anything.

So everything is gonna be tossed in the pot nice and rough.

- Okay.

- And everything is going to be like, to pull out all the goodness, like all the beautiful flavor of the garlic, the onions, the carrots, the tomato sauce.

So everything is gonna be lightly charred.

- Okay.

- So just grab the garlic.

- So if you decide to make this at home, remember you don't have to do a whole lot of chopping to make this sauce like he's saying.

Put it in rough.

Cook it.

Let it get nice and soft.

And then we're gonna puree it later, right?

- Yep.

- And it's gonna be delicious.

- All right, so smash a little of the garlic.

Why I smash the garlic?

So the garlic, smashing it, is going to release more the flavor, more the sweetness, and it's going to roast much better.

- I could smell it already.

It's lovely.

- All right, so we are going to put a little extra virgin olive oil, no veggie oil or canola.

So in Italy, most of the time when we cook, we cook just and only with extra virgin because it's what we have available.

Just higher up a little bit the fire just to start to heat it up a little thicker.

- So you've got just enough oil in there to cover the bottom of the pan.

Some recipes I've seen call for so much oil.

- Yeah.

- But I really don't think you need that much oil.

It doesn't make it any more velvety, does it?

- And the thing is like when you have a good product like extra virgin oil that is very bold, if you're going to use too much, it's going to overpower all the other flavor that you are going to want, you know?

- Yes, it would.

Yes, it would.

- [Raffaele] And that's it, just rough.

So I'm gonna start adding the garlic.

- So when you put your garlic in, what are you looking for before you add the rest of your onions?

- So I'm just looking for a little gold, not become like too dark, just become lightly brown.

So now it's time to add the whole onions, and I'm just going to toss them.

(onions sizzling) - [Pam] I love that sound.

- Oh, tell me about it.

- You wake up in the morning saying, "I can't wait to hear that sound."

- And in the whole restaurant, we like heard this sound pretty much every day.

- All the day.

- We make that we use in the restaurant, and we sell at our farmer's market about 80, 90 gallons of tomato sauce every week.

- Do you really?

- Yeah.

And we sell out every time everything, so.

- Between the hundreds of pounds of pasta and the gallons of tomato sauce, you guys have some practice.

(laughs) - So now usually I don't peel local carrots, and the reason is because how you can see, these are just like rich of flavor, very, very beautiful.

Why waste this beauty-ness?

But in this case, just showing you guys because not everybody can get local carrots, so some of you guys can found carrot from the supermarket.

So we are going just to peel them, and do not toss onion skin when you do this sauce.

Do not toss this beautiful and rich...

This is one of the part of the carrot that has more richness, more flavor.

- Okay.

- So you can do chicken stock from this.

You can do anything with this like a veggie stock.

The onions now, they're just nice and roast.

You can do this pretty much like meanwhile you are drinking, let's say, a bottle of wine.

Yeah?

- Oh, okay.

(laughs) - You enjoy a little relaxing time because when you do food, mostly like all the foods, but mostly Italian food, Italian food is love.

It's a passion.

So just take your time.

Enjoy what you're doing, enjoying the smell of, in this case, these onions and garlic releasing in your house.

- [Pam] It's nice to get your family to help you too.

- Yeah, that for sure.

And now just like chop very randomly all the carrots.

- [Pam] Once again, we're not looking for an exact cut.

We're just roughly chopping it and throwing it in just like we did with the onions and the garlic.

- Yep.

How you can see the onions start to be nice and- - Yeah.

- Use the word translucent.

- [Pam] Yes.

- What does that mean literally?

- [Pam] You can kind see through it.

- [Raffaele] Yeah, start to become transparent.

- Now for those of you at home, translucent doesn't mean you can see through it all the way.

You're still gonna be able to have a lot of white in that onion.

It's just where you're starting to see through the edges, and that's what he's talking about.

- So, and now, we are going to add the carrots, and again just stir this on.

Of course, at this point, the pot start to be hot.

- Yes.

- So don't be a hero.

Use like a... (Pam laughs) - Use your towel, yes.

- Yeah, the towels.

So, and let now the carrots start to cook a little bit as well.

So when I do my big batches of tomato basil, I have a perfect... Like, of course, it's all in my brain, but I have a perfect timing for each ingredient that I'm going to put in the pot.

So, of course, I add with extra virgin olive oil, I add the garlic, and the garlic, I let it brown up for about five minutes.

I add the onions, and the onions, it takes like in bigger batches of course, it takes about 10, 15 minutes.

I add the carrots after, and that as well is about 10 minutes.

So all these steps, the reason is because each vegetables has the time to release all this sweetness, the sugar, the flavor that they have.

And I'm going to build slowly, slowly the flavor profile that Italian cuisine- - Is known for.

- Yeah, it's known for.

So now, I just literally grab the parsley.

Boom, toss in there.

Grab the basil.

Of course if I have bigger branches- - Right.

- Try to pull this out.

- Now do you put the flower buds in there too, or do you pick those out?

- I love the flower, yeah.

The flower of the basil is the one that has more flavor of the basil.

So of course whenever they flower, it means that the plant start to become a little older.

But I love personally when the basil start to do flower.

Just grab that, and I do like canned tomato and mozzarella like a caprese.

- Oh yeah, yeah.

- And instead to use the leaf, sprinkle the flower on top.

That is one of my favorite things.

- That would be beautiful too.

- Just lightly cook this.

When the basil and parsley is just like little wilted, you grab the tomato cans.

So in this case, I usually use like fresh tomatoes, but using fresh tomatoes a little bit more expensive.

Like, it's not so- - And a lot more work.

- Yeah, and it's not something that you can found all year around.

So what I'm using, I'm using just passata di pomodoro.

Passata dip pomodoro is just like tomato sauce, like very thick tomato sauce that is almost tomato paste, so it's a mix between tomato paste and the classic straight tomato that you can found.

- [Pam] And they can find these in your market, right?

- Yeah, they can come in my restaurant.

We opened a whole second restaurant in South Park.

I think last time we saw each other, we had just the one in uptown.

- Yeah.

- And recently, we just opened another one in South Park.

It's a gorgeous place.

- It is a gorgeous place.

- So now we just are going to add the passata di pomodoro, and just use a little bit of water.

- Gotta get every bit out of the can.

- Yeah, just like clean the cans because when you're going to buy this, of course, you pay everything of this can.

- Yes, yes you do.

- [Raffaele] Toss in.

- Want me to give this a stir?

- Yeah, please.

And then we are not done yet.

We get two leaves of bay leaf.

- Okay.

- Toss it, oh.

- Oops.

- One flew away.

- I get that one.

- And just a little bit.. - There we go.

- Sorry if I walk behind you, chef.

- You're fine.

- [Raffaele] And just a little bit of salt.

- Just a little bit of salt.

- Just a little bit.

And a pinch of pepper.

There you go.

And bring the sauce now to boil.

- [Pam] And then we're gonna let that simmer for about 45 minutes, right?

- Yes, ma'am.

- Okay.

- So the first five, 10 minutes is very important because what is going to happen, right now when we toss the tomato sauce in it, like, the tomato was all mixed.

So now what is going to happen slowly, slowly, that the water is gonna go up, and the sugar that are heavier and hold the heavy part of the tomato is going down.

So the first 10 minutes, it's very important because, like, if you don't keep an eye on it, you can burn the bottom.

- Yes.

- Always keep an eye on it.

And the last step over here on the eggplant Parmesan- - Okay, now we're gonna go talk about eggplants.

Why don't you tell us about eggplants because there is more than one kind of eggplant out there.

- Yeah, let's not forget before we start to do the eggplant Parmesan process, let's heat up the oven at 350.

- Okay, 350.

- Yeah, if you can help me, chef.

- Because then when we're ready to put it in the oven, it's already preheated and ready to go.

- Today we have only sugar variety of eggplants.

We have the classic eggplant that you can found in any places.

That is just a purple eggplant.

You can found around, you know, like the Japanese style that they look like this.

- But they're long and skinny.

- But they're longer.

You can found the Indian style that are more small kind of eggplants.

- Look like little round balls.

- Yeah, yeah.

Or you can found as well different Italian variety of eggplants just like this.

So this is named graffiti eggplants, or melanzana graffiti.

So melanzana is the word in Italian of eggplants.

- Okay.

- And what does that mean, the word graffiti?

So the design in Italian is named graffiti.

The name is coming from how you can see all these, look almost like design.

- Yes, the striation in there.

- Yeah, yeah.

So when I do my eggplant Parmesan, I usually prefer to use this kind of eggplant, and the reason is because they are both very good to use.

It doesn't matter if you cannot find this.

You can use this, but this usually has a little bit thicker skin.

You see that my knife has a little bit more hard time to enter in it, and it's just because- - The skin is thicker.

- Yeah, the skin is, it's a little thicker, - On the thicker side, yes.

- This instead, it's a little bit more thinner skin.

- [Pam] Yeah, it is.

- So if you use the purple one, usually I suggest to peel it.

- Okay.

- But if you found like eggplants that are more like these from local farmers, you can use the same without peeling them.

But if you are going to use eggplants from the supermarket that are much bigger, and so what does that mean?

The skin, if it's thicker, it's going to be a little bit bitter.

It's going to be more chewy when you are biting too.

So I always prefer to use all this kind, or if I found that the dark one, buy local and buy the smaller one.

That is a little bit more soft.

Cut the head on it on all of them.

- Ah.

- You can even cut like up here and then just peel the the top.

I prefer use a mandolin.

If you are in a restaurant, you can use a slicer, whatever.

But you just put the mandolin about 3/4 of an inch, one inch.

And just be careful for your hands that you don't slice your hands.

- So if you didn't have a tool, you can always just do this with a knife too.

- Yeah, just do a knife.

- Just take your time.

Yeah, those machines really intimidate a lot of people.

- Yeah.

(Pam laughs) Even if you work in a restaurant, like, "Ah, should I be careful?

No."

- Yeah, you do have to be careful.

- So, and always like when you do the eggplant Parmesan as well, try to get just the middle one, and I'm gonna show you the reason why.

You can use even the edges, but the edges are not going to stick like to the cream or the bread.

But you can always use that for, I don't know, saute or enjoy in any other way.

- The breading won't stick to the skin, and so you wanna make sure that you have the flesh showing so that the breading will stick to the flesh 'cause it's just, the skin doesn't hold onto the breading for some reason.

So how many eggplants does it take to make this dish?

- In this pan, use just two.

Just, I love slicing, so I gonna show slicing all of you guys for all of it.

There you go.

- Do you want me to start heating the oil up?

- Yeah, let's turn on the- - Okay, and how- - Let's start very low, just low heat, just because this is a cast iron and take a little time to heat it up.

- [Pam] Okay, and how much oil do you need?

- [Raffaele] An inch of olive oil.

I use always and only extra virgin olive oil for it.

- You could tell by that color.

It's beautiful.

- It just give a little bit more flavor to everything that you do.

So what do we have here now?

We have flour.

You can use all-purpose flour.

Its not very important, just like a white kind of flour.

You have eggs, cream, like preferable, half-and-half.

That is a little bit more rich.

A little Parmesan as well to put in and give it more flavor.

Salt, pepper, of course.

And then we have breadcrumb.

I use like a Japanese-style breadcrumb.

It's just a little bit more- - It's larger.

- Lightweight.

Yeah, and give a little bit more flavor when you do this.

So just toss this in for now.

I toss flour in as well.

Then I just grab salt, pepper.

I know, Italians just go by eyes.

I wrote the recipe for this show, but (laughs) I go every time by eyes.

A little salt as well here.

(Pam laughs) Pepper.

And a little dry parsley.

Just give a little- - Oh, that'll be pretty.

- Yeah, extra color.

One egg.

(egg tapping) - How many eggs do you use?

- I use for this just one.

Just give a little color to it and a little extra flavor and- - Oh, you put the Parmesan in with the eggs, okay.

- I put put the Parmesan with the eggs.

- [Pam] Good.

- [Raffaele] And I put Parmesan as well with the breadcrumb.

- [Pam] Oh you do?

Okay.

- I grab the whisk and just whisk everything.

- This already looks good, and you're just putting it together.

- And we just start the breading process.

Just grab the eggplants.

Make sure that you coat each side.

- [Pam] And you've got salt and pepper in your flour and in your breading, so we don't have to worry about salt and peppering them in their raw state.

- And as well, the raw state of the eggplants, usually you add the, when you add salt, the eggplant is going to release water.

It's going to release all the juice of it.

And in this case, it's going to make the eggplants too dry.

So you want the eggplant is as fresh and as juicy as possible.

- Okay.

- Just take your time.

Do one eggplant at a time.

Drink another bottle and a half of wine.

Enjoy your day.

- You're gonna forget what you're doing with all that wine.

(laughs) Have to have your friends come over.

- [Raffaele] Yeah.

- And speaking of friends, we have a studio audience today, and we have the Charlotte Herb Guild here with us, and I just wanted to welcome to our studio audience.

- [Raffaele] All right, so now we just bread it with flour, all our eggplants.

Just do now the milk and egg wash. - Let's coat both sides.

- Yeah, put a little bit of breadcrumb.

- Now the reason you do this is to keep those eggplants from sticking to that tray.

- When it's eggplant season, we get and buy locally, of course.

So I do eggplant Parm at my restaurant just between June to about July, like August pretty much.

And it's when eggplant season is.

After that, I can still have some eggplant in my shop to sell in retail, but I don't have any to serve fresh as like to eat.

And the reason is because we buy the eggplant from local farmers during the season.

Last year, we bought and processed and made about 700 pounds of eggplant.

- Wow, that's a lot of eggplant.

- Yeah.

Coat a little bit on the bottom.

Coat on top and just push.

Make sure that the breading stays on it.

Never forget about your tomato sauce because as I mentioned, the first 10 minutes, you need to- - Stir it.

- Make sure and stir that the sugar doesn't go too much on the bottom.

So this is like always as well you need to think of the kind of equipment, cooking equipment that you have because sometime like the induction stove or electric stove, it's a little bit more, cook a little bit more sweet.

- Yes.

- Like more delicate.

- Yeah.

- Sometime the gas range is centered a little bit more- - Can be powerful.

- A little bit more powerful.

So make sure always to check an eye on your tomato sauce because just like in this case, meanwhile as it was cooking, it dry up a little too much.

But don't be afraid about that.

What does it mean that the tomato, it went to become more concentrate?

You just grab like a cup of water.

Toss the water in and- - And that's what you did here.

- And you know, tomatoes are about, I don't know the perfect science, but 85, 80% made out of water.

So you're just going to give back water that went to be evaporate, so.

- So it stays fluid.

- Yeah.

We are going to pan fry this.

You can pan fry.

You can deep fry them.

The difference is if you have a fryer, toss the fryer.

Or if you have like a pan, saute pan or frying pan, you just like do in this way.

So my technique, many people use the tablespoon.

Grandmas in Italy, they put their finger and feel how hot it is.

- I put a wooden spoon in.

- Yeah.

(laughs) I just grab like the same breadcrumb that I'm going to use, sprinkle on top, and listen sizzling.

- [Pam] Yes, you can see it.

- And what does that mean?

That it's ready.

- It's ready.

Here we go.

I'm glad Italians fry things too.

- Yeah.

(Pam laughs) These, after you fry, it's always best to let it rest for about like five minutes.

Otherwise you are going to burn your fingers- - Yeah, trying to pick it up and deal with it, yeah.

You want it to be golden brown, right?

- Yep.

- Okay.

- You want that they are golden brown each side.

Make sure, of course, to don't burn them.

So just how I say, Italian kitchen, Italian cuisine, it's very like, easy.

It's just like beautiful ingredients- - It is beautiful.

- Passion, time, boom, make a beautiful meal out of it.

If like the oil start to fry too hot just shut down very gentle- - Adjust it, yes, - The fire.

And every time, everything under control.

So how you can see this is ready- - Beautiful golden brown.

We have our sauce that's been cooking, and now we're going to puree it.

And we're gonna assemble this?

- Yeah, but how do you understand if the tomato sauce is ready?

- Okay.

- So, do you see how these like almost orange-ish- - Yeah, little bubbles.

- Little circle.

They are the tomato.

When it's cooking, it's going to release acid.

- Okay.

- So more it cooks, in the beginning, and more the acid is going to expand, and slowly, slowly, it's going to reduce and evaporate all the acid.

- Okay.

- So what does that do?

It's going to give the tomato sauce more like a sweetness flavor, a more bold flavor.

Let's grab the immersion blender and blend it out.

- Now y'all be careful when you do this.

You can do this in a blender.

You can do it in a food processor.

Or you can do it with an immersion blender.

But be careful because it is hot, and if it splatters, you will get it on you, and you'll know it.

- Now is the fun part, the easiest.

You drink about five bottle of wine now.

You are tired.

(Pam laughs) This is the last step, but anyway.

- You don't care about dinner being done.

(laughs) - But you just grab a little tomato sauce, put on the bottom, smear.

- And once again, this is to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

- Yep.

And then just grab the eggplants and just play like Tetris.

- There you go.

- Just do one, two.

I go as well...

Sometime the pieces are not the most perfect, so you just...

Careful.

I do on this.

Like, you should not do like a knife, a good knife on the iron, but just wanna show you guys.

Put here.

- [Pam] So you want it all to be a nice thin single layer.

- Yep.

- No overlapping.

- And again, grab a little tomato sauce, smear on top.

- Now we're not swimming it in tomato sauce.

We're just layering in the tomato sauce.

- So I'm gonna get the Parmesan now, and I just like, just put a little bit to give extra flavor.

- [Pam] That nice rich flavor that Parmesan has.

- Grab the mozzarella.

Do the same thing.

- [Pam] And are you using whole-milk mozzarella?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- And now just keep building up.

- [Pam] Does it matter how many layers you get?

- I like to be about to the limit.

- Okay.

- So in this case, it depends as well how thick or thin you slice- - Right, right.

- Your eggplants.

So in this case, we can do even three layers, no problem at all.

- So if you had really thick slices- - Yep, I would do two, two layers.

Grab again a little Parmesan.

- So we see how this is layered like lasagna, right?

Layers of flavor.

- Of flavor, and with more mozzarella on it.

And last one, very quick, boom.

- Oh boy.

And then we have some for snacks.

- Yes, always a little extra.

So now we are going to put plastic wrap.

- Okay.

- And then we are going to put the foil on top.

So the reason why I do...

I know some people can say, "Why you put plastic wrap on something that you're gonna put in the oven?"

Actually, if you are going to put the plastic wrap and foil, the plastic is not going to melt.

So the moist of the lasagna inside is going to work against the heat outside.

- Yeah.

- And what it does, it's keeping the lasagna/eggplant, in this case, nice and moist without let it dry too much.

- Okay, so now we're gonna put this in the oven, right?

- Let's put this in the oven.

- How long do we put?

We have a 350 degree oven.

- Yep.

- How long?

- So you do at 350 degrees for about 40, 45 minutes.

- [Pam] All right, so the last few minutes, you take the foil off.

- Yep.

- So that it can get nice and brown and bubbly.

- Yep, yep.

- This looks fantastic.

- And you let us sit for about four, five minutes after you pull out because in this way, all the extra oil, extra moist that was inside is going to get absorbed back- - Right.

- From the eggplant.

- Right.

- And you just start to cut.

Separate a little bit the side.

Listen, how crispy.

- Ooh, yeah.

(cheese crunches) You can hear the cheese.

- We're gonna grab a little of our tomato sauce that we previously cooked.

Put a little bit on the bottom, extra flavor.

- Good flavor.

- Good flavor, all the best.

- That sauce is amazing.

- Just grab the eggplant.

- [Pam] Whoo-hoo.

- [Raffaele] Put on top.

- And there we've got it.

Look at this beautiful eggplant Parmesan.

I bet you've never seen anything like that before unless you've been to Mano Bella.

This is fabulous.

So here is a recipe for a beautiful tomato sauce and eggplant Parmesan served lasagna style.

Thank you for watching this episode of "Charlotte Cooks."

If you'd like to grab our recipes, go to pbscharlotte.org, and you can find our recipes.

And thank you so much for being here again.

- Of course.

- And we'll catch you guys next time on "Charlotte Cooks."

Thanks for watching.

(joyful music) (bright music) - [Announcer 1] A production of PBS Charlotte.