• Wash the eggplants and slice them into 0.5 cm thick pieces. Place them in a colander, sprinkling each slice with salt. Ideally, use sea salt, as it dissolves more slowly (photo 1). But table salt can also be used. Cover the filled colander with a lid and place something heavy on top of a plate. I use a pineapple as a press (photo 2) – but you can use a bottle of water or any other heavy object. If it’s hot at home, the eggplants under the press should go into the refrigerator. They should sit like this for 12 to 24 hours and release a lot of brownish water.
  
• After that, rinse each slice of eggplant under running water. Lay them out on a dry towel to absorb the rinsing water. Fry the eggplants on both sides in plenty of vegetable oil. Place the fried pieces on paper towels – this will absorb the excess oil (photo 4).

Sauce for the Parmigiana

• Finely chop the onion. In a pan with olive oil, heat a couple of garlic cloves. As soon as the garlic begins to brown – remove it and add the onion. Fry for 5 minutes. Pour the tomato passata into the pan with the onion. Simmer for another 5 minutes. Salt to taste. Let it cool slightly and divide the sauce into 2 equal parts. Into one part, beat 1 raw egg and mix well with a fork. This part with the egg will go on the bottom and top of the Parmigiana.

Assembling the Parmigiana

• Spread a few spoons of the tomato sauce with egg on the bottom of the baking dish. Carefully spread it evenly. Place the first layer of eggplants. The slices can overlap each other (photo 5). Cover the eggplant layer with a layer of tomato sauce without egg (photo 6). On top, you can add a few fresh basil leaves. Sprinkle with Parmigiano (photo 7) or add a layer of mozzarella. Then cover again with eggplants. Repeat the layers: eggplants/tomato sauce/cheese until the eggplants are finished.
  
• Cover the last layer of eggplants with tomato sauce mixed with egg and generously sprinkle with Parmigiano (for both versions – with Parmigiano only or with mozzarella – the final layer is always the same: generously topped with Parmigiano) – photo 8.

  You can also sprinkle the top of the Parmigiana with a spoon of breadcrumbs – this will give it a delicious golden crust.
  
• Bake the Parmigiana at 180°C for 30 minutes, then increase the temperature to 200°C and bake for another 10 minutes, until a golden crust forms. If your baking dish is small, 25 minutes at 180°C and 5 minutes at 200°C will be enough.

  Parmigiana di Melanzane should rest a little before serving. Even better, prepare it the day before, then reheat in the oven for 15 minutes at 180°C. This way, the Parmigiana will hold its shape perfectly and be twice as delicious!