How to handle having to do a lot of frying as part of preparing eggplant parmigiana?

Question

I use my mom's recipe. Slice the eggplant, about 1/4 inch slices. Bake for about 10 minutes. Then dip the slices in stirred eggs and then in bread crumbs. Then fry the breaded slices. I tend to have a lot of eggplant slices, so with a largish cast iron pan, if I put in 4 slices at a time, I have to fry up at least 6 rounds of 4 slices, or something like that. I'm not very experienced with cooking and especially frying. Sometimes, the eggplant gets oily from all the oil I fry with. Last time I made it, being conscious of all the oil, I tried to use less, but then the breaded slices didn't get fried enough.

When I get to baking with the sauce and cheese, it turned out okay with the "drier" slices, but it wasn't as subjectively good as when I get a little more oil on them when they fry. I don't do this enough to figure out a consistent workflow, so any advice is welcome. I did read a couple of questions here about frying eggplant and the usual response was to first salt the slices and then dry them, but I don't know if that works when I'm going to bake, bread, and then fry the slices. Also, I'm slow, so the process already takes 2+ hours for me to make the dish from start to finish. lol

What is the best way to handle all of this frying with breaded eggplant slices, where I don't use too much oil, but I don't come out too dry either?

Answer 1

Salting helps with oil absorption to a degree, but eggplant are sponges. Baking and frying are not necessary. To simplify, choose one. I've successfully made parm both ways. Breading and baking is certainly more efficient, as you can cook the entire batch of eggplant at once. I do that on a rack over a sheet pan, flipping part way through. Convection bake at a relatively high temperature is helpful here. Otherwise, you will just need to take your time and fry. Try salting for 30 min, rinse, and pat dry. If frying, monitor the temperature carefully, allow excess oil to drip off when you remove from pan, then allow to drain on a rack or paper towel before constructing the parm.