Melanzane a Cotolette
Breaded, fried eggplant cutlets
Eggplant, sliced lengthwise, salted to draw out the bitterness, then breaded and fried exactly the way you would a cotoletta of meat — egg, breadcrumbs, hot oil. Another classic, and proof that the cotoletta treatment does not require meat at all.
This takes the cotoletta method — flour or breadcrumbs, egg, hot oil — and applies it to eggplant instead of meat, and the result earns its name honestly. The eggplant is sliced lengthwise into pieces not too thin, salted and weighted under a couple of plates for an hour or two to draw out the bitter liquid, then dried, dipped in beaten egg, coated in breadcrumbs, and fried until golden. What comes out of the oil is a genuine cutlet — crisp outside, soft and almost creamy within, with none of the sourness raw eggplant liquid can carry.
Sliced lengthwise, the pieces are long and suit a plate on their own, next to a salad or as part of a fritto misto. Cut instead into rounds, the pieces are better suited to an antipasto table or mixed in with other fried vegetables — smaller, easier to eat by hand, and just as good.
The recipe
For six, as a contorno or part of a fritto misto.
Variation
Buon appetito.
