Melanzane al Cioccolato
Maiori, Amalfi Coast
Every August 15, the town of Maiori on the Amalfi Coast celebrates by frying eggplant and layering it with chocolate sauce. It is a dessert, it is served cold, and the town is not joking.
Fried eggplant is a sponge with almost no flavor agenda of its own, and its silky flesh absorbs sweet things exactly as readily as it absorbs garlic and oil. An overnight rest lets the slices drink in the spiced chocolate until they land somewhere near candied fruit. Almonds, pine nuts, and candied peel keep every bite from being one soft note.
The dish belongs to Campania, and specifically to the Amalfi Coast, where its invention is claimed by several parties. The best-known legend says medieval monks in the mountains above Tramonti dipped fried eggplant into Concerto, their syrupy herb liqueur, and that the townspeople of nearby Maiori later swapped the liqueur for melted chocolate. Other tellings credit the nuns of Santa Maria della Misericordia. Whatever the truth, Maiori adopted it, and a visit from a relative of Tsar Nicholas II, who tried it at a grand hotel, helped push local bakeries to make it commercially.
It remains tied to Ferragosto, the August 15 holiday, when families make trays of it days in advance and Maiori holds festivities around the dish. Around Sorrento you will find a variant layered with sweetened ricotta; in Maiori, Tramonti, and Ravello the classic is eggplant, chocolate, nuts, and patience.
Ingredients
- 2 medium (about 800 g / 1 3/4 lb total) eggplantsslender Italian type if possible; no salting needed
- 60 g (1/2 cup) flourfor dredging
- 3 eggsbeaten
- about 500 ml (2 cups) neutral oilfor shallow frying
- 100 g (1/2 cup) sugarmixed with 1 tsp cinnamon and the grated zest of 1 lemon, for sprinkling
- 60 g (2/3 cup) unsweetened cocoa powderfor the sauce
- 150 g (3/4 cup) sugarfor the sauce
- 600 ml (2 1/2 cups) whole milkfor the sauce
- 100 g (3.5 oz) dark chocolatechopped, stirred into the sauce
- 50 g (1/2 cup) toasted almondsroughly chopped
- 30 g (1/4 cup) pine nuts
- 40 g (1/4 cup) candied citrus peelchopped
- 30 g (1 oz) dark chocolateextra, chopped, for scattering between layers
Method
- Slice the eggplants lengthwise about 6 mm (1/4 inch) thick.
- Fry the slices briefly in hot oil until softened but not colored, then drain them on paper towels and let them cool completely.
- Dredge each cooled slice in flour, dip it in beaten egg, and fry again until golden on both sides, then drain well; the double fry guarantees they are cooked through.
- While the slices are still warm, sprinkle both sides with the lemon and cinnamon sugar.
- For the sauce, whisk the cocoa, sugar, and milk together in a saucepan until smooth, then simmer gently, stirring often, for 15 to 20 minutes until it thickens to a pourable custard.
- Off the heat, stir the chopped chocolate into the sauce until melted and glossy.
- Spread a thin layer of sauce over the base of a serving dish.
- Build layers like a parmigiana: eggplant slices, sauce, then a scatter of almonds, pine nuts, candied peel, and chopped chocolate, repeating and finishing with sauce and a generous final scatter.
- Cool to room temperature, cover, and refrigerate at least overnight and up to 3 days; the flavor genuinely improves as it sits.
- Serve cool or at cellar temperature, cut into slabs like a cake.
Cooked it? Say how it went. Tweaks, substitutions, honest verdicts, all welcome.
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