Yup, more breading.

I was so excited by my breading success that I had to try it again. So here is some more breaded eggplant. However, in my tiny kitchen it was a lot more difficult. I have written about breading so many times, I will let my pictures tell my story.













Yummy. And no eggs or dairy.

Breading Success!!

I had a successful breading experience! This weekend I was at my parent's house and my dad and I made eggplant (parmigiana). His had cheese but mine, of course, did not. It was inspired by the same Throwdown with Bobby Flay that had inspired me the last time to try breading eggplant. This time, it worked!! And I used no eggs! In fact, mine came out better than my dad's. His eggplant burned a little when he fried it, I guess because of the egg.

So here is what I did. First, I salted the eggplant. Then I rinsed it. Then, I coated it in flour. With a light coating of flour, I dipped it in soymilk. Then I coated it with breadcrumbs. Then it went back into the soymilk and I coated it again with breadcrumbs. Double dipping!

It came out great and the breading really stuck to it.

Success!!!
(sorry, there are no pictures because I wasn't expecting such success and I was at my parents without my camera)

The Trials and Tribulations of Breading

I have been remiss in posting and I have to admit that by this time when I am posting about my experience making breaded eggplant, all the eggplant has been eaten... days ago. Bad blogger :( Breading eggplant has been something I have tried many times and always failed. Without egg I find it very difficult to get the breadcrumbs to stick. The one thing I have to say that I did very well this time was prep the eggplant. I was very patient. I salted one side, let it sit, rinsed it, salted the other side, let it sit, rinsed it. So the eggplant came out nice and tender and not tough like usual. I began using ricemilk to wet it and then dipped it in the breadcrumbs. Then I fried it in oil.



Not only did I use WAY too much oil, but the breadcrumbs fell right off. Since I have a history of getting really frustrated with breading, I caved and added one egg to my rice milk. I was not happy about cracking an egg and seeing the yolk (ew) but I just really wanted the breading to stick. I figured mixed with the rice milk it was a very, very small amount of egg. Bad vegan :( But that worked better.


The next thing I did that really helped was double dip. I dipped in the ricemilk mixture, then the breadcrumbs, then back in the ricemilk, then back in the crumbs. It got the breading much thicker. I wonder if I had done that before trying the egg I could have done it truly vegan.


Then they were really oily from the pan frying so I baked them. Next time I am going to use a very, very light spray and not worry so much about getting the eggplant soft, then I will bake longer to get the eggplant soft.

Here is the final product!!


You live, you learn!