Cashew-breaded Eggplant

[Mok]

We had a bumper crop of eggplant this year, so here's a recipe I came up with to try to use them all before they got too old.

Eggplant:
1 large eggplant, skinned and sliced 1/4" thick
Bragg's Amino Acids (spray bottle)
1/4c balsamic vinegar
onion powder
garlic powder

Breading:
1/4 cups each of unsalted cashews and peanuts, ground to a coarse flour
1 slice of whole-wheat bread ground to crumbs
Fresh herb mix: Rosemary, Summer Savory, Oregano, Thyme, Sage

Dredge:
1/2c soy milk
2T nutritional yeast


Put the eggplant slices in a large bowl and spritz Bragg's on both sides.  Drizzle the vinegar over them all and make sure they get covered very well, turning and basting them for a few minutes.  Sprinkle both sides lightly with garlic and onion powder.  Leave for now.

Mix together the ground cashews, peanuts, and breadcrumbs (I usually grind the cashews and peanuts together, dump them in a bowl, then put a slice of wheat bread into the chopper to crumble it).  Mash the herbs up in a mortar and pestle until they're good and pasty, then mix with the crumbs until well distributed.  Don't expect uniform distribution, just do the best you can.

Mix the soy milk with the nutritional yeast and stir well.

Dip the eggplant slices in the soy milk and sprinkle the breading onto them.  The breading is easily compressible, I ended up just sort of patting it onto the eggplant to make a crust.

Once they've all got a good crust on them put them in the oven on 375 for about 25 minutes or until slightly browned.  Serve over pasta with a tasty tomato sauce.

Muy tasty!

[Syd]

hmm...breading w/o eggs, nice. What is dredge?

[Mok]

It's the liquid that is supposed to help the breading stick to whatever it is you're frying.  In this case, it was more of a mechanism to put nutritional yeast onto the eggplant as it failed terribly at its other job.