Berenjenas Fritas

Photo: Raquelle M.

Ingredients

One large eggplant

3/4 cup flour

3 Eggs, beaten

Salt to taste

light olive oil or canola oil, for frying

Preparation

Cut off the top and bottom of the eggplant. Peel by running your knife along the side, stripping away the skin section by section. If you like eggplant skin, just leave it on.

Cut the eggplant in half through the middle. Then cut each section into slices. Salt the slices liberally and put into a colander. Let them sit for about 10 minutes. The salt will season the eggplant slices and extract some of the extra liquid from the vegetable.

Heat up a large skillet with light olive oil (not extra-virgin) or canola oil. When the oil starts to sizzle, fry the eggplant slices in batches of 3 or 4. Cook each side for about 2-3 minutes or until lightly brown. Eggplant absorbs a lot of oil so you will want to keep adding to the pan- just don't add too much.

Fry all the eggplant this way. Set batches aside on paper towels.

When you are done frying all the eggplants, fry them again in batches of 3-4 slices at a time. Coat each slice in flour then dip in egg. You want to get a good amount of egg on the eggplant so make sure to really dunk it in.

Add the coated eggplant back to the hot skillet and fry for 2 minutes on each side. Keep adding oil to the pan whenever it looks dry.

Add fried eggplant slices to new paper towels to sop up the excess oil and to keep them crispy. Season the slices with salt immediately.