First, let me say this isn't a quick, week night meal. It was a meal undertaking for a Saturday, where I had time, and patience. Late in the week, I knew I wanted to make a nice dinner for my muse, and while cruising the market, saw one of the first signs of summer...nice shiny globe eggplant, and juicy vine ripe tomatoes. Some further wandering, and some baby arugula and portobella mushrooms, I knew I had a dinner. Asparagus was on sale, so I threw some of that in to the basket, and wandered off in quest for some fresh mozzarella.

I grabbed a couple of bunches of fresh herbs, basil and thyme, and figured I had everything I needed (well, I did grab a couple bottles of wine).

First, I needed a plan of attack. When I found the fresh mozzarella, I knew I wanted to make a stack, or napolean, or what ever new age culinary term you want to use. Don't get me wrong, professionally I've used both terms, as well as seen "lasagna" tossed in when layering vegetables and cheeses for an entree. Let's just call it a stack for arguments sake.

I decided I was going to grill the portobella, as I had some ears of corn that I wanted to grill off any ways. The eggplant, bread and fry crispy. The tomato, fresh, with just a little garlic, salt, pepper, and basil. The asparagus, I wasn't so sure, but I knew it wasn't going to be in the stack. So for the time being, I just wanted to steam it, and think about it while doing everything else.

To grill the mushrooms, I fell back on a standard preparation. The old saying, "if it ain't broke...", one thing about portobellas- when they are sold in packages, the gills, the underside, tend to get wet, and mushy. Likewise, if they've set in the crisper too long, they can get the same way. Anyway, I like to scrape the gills out, especially when they've gotten mushy. From there, toss with fresh chopped garlic and rosemary, kosher salt, cracked pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Just a few splashes of vinegar, but it really lends to that "meaty" flavor that portobellas have the reputation of. One note about the olive oil. Mushrooms tend to act like a sponge, so be careful with the amount, as when it hits the grill, the oil will leach back out, and cause big flames.

While the mushrooms are marinating, the next step is to peel and salt the egglplant. Just like the mushrooms, eggplant can be like a sponge, so salting the eggplant helps mellow the bitterness that some feel eggplant can have, as well as prevent from soaking up so much oil. For this dish, I cut the eggplant fairly thick, maybe an inch. Another note, I like to peel the skin on the big globe eggplant. I leave about 1 inch wide strips, and peel wide swatches in between. As far as salting, a good dusting of kosher salt, let sit about an hour, and then rinse.
While eggplant sits, and the portobella marinates, you can go ahead and blanched the asparagus. The fancy way of doing aspargus is to trim the ends, and peel the thick end, the second fanciest way is to hold each end of the aspargus and bend, and let the asparagus break at the weakest point. I just eyeball the toughest part, and chop it off. Similarly, some people will own an asparagus steamer, that is a basket that keeps the tips up right, steaming the bottom longer. Which is fine, but ample amonts of lightly salted water at a rolling boil, with the asparagus thrown in, works fine. Remember that when items come out of boiling water, the item continues to cook, so don't let the asparagus get too cooked. Also, keep in mind if you intend to introduce the asparagus to heat again, allow for that as well.

OK, the eggplant is sitting, the mushrooms are ready for the grill (I got the fire started when I started working on the eggplant), and the asparagus is blanched. Now we want to grill the portobellas. We won't need to keep them hot, so this actually could be done at anytime. For instance, if you were grilling on Thursday, and knew you wanted to make this dish on Saturday, they can easily be grilled in advance (keeping from eating them is another thing).

As the mushrooms come off the grill, we can rinse the eggplant, and bread them. I used a mixture of regular seasoned breadcrumbs, and panko, a Japanese bread crumb, available at most Asian markets. Panko tend to not absorb as much oil, are slightly bigger, and help give more "crunch". Any breading follows the same technique. Flour, egg, and breading. The flour is needed to give the egg something to stick to, otherwise, as you may have experienced, the egg just slides off the item. I like to add pepper to flour, and in this case I used white pepper. Salt just as it comes out of the oil.
So I bread all the egglplant, get my cast iron skillet hot, add enough olive oil and canola oil (canola has a slightly higher smoking point, so by mixing it, I can get it hot, without too hot and smoking.) Brown one side, flip and brown the other. Season with kosher salt as it comes out of the oil, and drain on paper towels to soak up the extra oil.

We are just about to finish the stack, and I've decided to take the blanched asparagus, and make a white bean salad. So I drain a can of small navy beans, cut the aspargus into small pieces, and toss both with a little garlic, some of the fresh thyme, salt and pepper, olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, and the special touch, a drizzle of white truffle oil. I highly recommend keeping a small bottle around. Don't let the high price tag scare you, a very small amount goes a long way. Just a slight drizzle over the salad, and a very rich element is added with little effort.

For the tomato, a nice thick slice, again, a touch of salt and cracked pepper, some minced garlic, and thinly chopped fresh basil. Just let the ripe tomato be the star.

To assemble, I started with one slice of eggplant, thin slices of eggplant, and one slice mozzarella. Top that with another slice of eggplant, then the tomato, and finally more cheese. Put that into an oven, (I had it around 375 to start), and finish under the broiler to melt and lightly brown the cheese.

While that's in the oven, lightly toss the baby arugula with a little olive oil and white wine vinegar, a lay a bed down on the plate. A small mound of the white bean asparagus salad to the side, and remove the stack from the oven, set atop the arugula, poor a big glass of wine (for me it was chardonnay, but a viogner, or fuity red would equally be satisfying). Enjoy!