Italian Shrimp and Pasta with Baked Eggplant | Fit to Eat | MPB

This program was made possible in part by:
Family traditions are never more important than when
families gather around the dinner table
to celebrate special occasions.
Farm Families of Mississippi share
the bounty of the harvest with families
throughout the state and even the nation.
Chances are that your gatherings include
delicious sweet corn, baked sweet potatoes
and a rich, golden pecan pie.
Buy Mississippi-grown products.
It's good for your family,
and it's good for Mississippi.
The Farm Families of Mississippi.
Mississippi Seafood Marketing a division
of The Department of Marine Resources.
From our waters to your table fresh, local, healthy.
Information available at DMR.MS.GOV
♪♪
Well hi, I'm chef Rob Stinson and this
is Fit to Eat, a new series about eating healthy
and living better.
Mississippi is at the bottom of national studies
in health and nutrition.
Diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and obesity
run rampant in our great state.
I'm here to demonstrate how little changes in diet
can make a big difference in health.
Making those changes doesn't mean you
have to sacrifice flavor to get rid of fat.
Taking fresh, local ingredients, I'm
going to teach you to make meals that are
healthy and delicious without spending a fortune.
And as always, you can find my recipes
with all the nutritional information on our website.
The shrimping industry has been a huge part
of the development on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Today we are cooking Italian and we're using
some beautiful fresh Gulf shrimp.
The most important thing, and I forgot to tell you,
when you're looking in the grocery store,
try to find your good, local, wild-caught shrimp.
There's a big difference between that
and some imported products and you really
want to search out what you're buying.
When you see good shrimp, fresh produce, go to your
local farmers markets.
Buy as much as you can here local
to support all of the local merchants.
It's the way to go.
We've got a lot to do today.
We're going to make a classic marinara sauce
which is a very light plum tomato sauce.
You would see this pretty prevalently in South Italy.
The way it is going to start is with lots of garlic.
There's no way around garlic in Italian food.
As well as onion.
To get going with this, were going to place
a good amount in the bottom of our bowl
and what we want to do, I try to season the pot
so that when the garlic and onion go in,
they are automatically going to start browning.
That's a lot of heat going in there.
Beautiful garlic.
That's about 8 ounces of each.
So this is not for the meek, but it is so incredible.
I try to be sparing on the oil.
It's the way you want to cook.
You really need to decide what is
your commitment to eating healthy.
On this one, it's a blast because you've got
all these great flavors going on and you can see
it's already starting to brown some.
We will turn the heat down a hair.
We will let the onion and garlic cook a little bit.
What we will add in next is our black pepper.
It looks like a lot.
You have to remember this is a lot of tomato
that's going in here.
And crushed red pepper.
There's a nice spice that goes along with marinara sauce.
You've got to remember, it's the sauce of South Italy.
A lot of the food in south Italy is spicier
than it is in northern Italy.
I had the great opportunity of working with a master
Italian chef, Cheero Como and Carmella Chirico in Italy.
Their belief was simple, fresh ingredients
put together properly make great food.
That really says what Italian food,
in my belief, is all about.
We're going to deglaze the pan.
Sometimes you would use a little wine, sometimes not.
Try to be a little bit on the healthier side.
As that starts working, what we are going to do,
I've got a pot in back that I've got
up to a relatively rapid boil.
In this we are going to cook the healthy version
of pasta which is 100% whole wheat penne pasta.
Let's take a look at that.
Just simple short penne pasta, 100% wheat,
drop it in the water and we're going to keep our eye on that.
Strain it when it's ready.
It's like I said, with this dish there is a whole lot going on.
We're going to have a little bit of fun and see
these tomatoes head into all of that seasoning right now.
You can hear that sizzle.
Now we want to stir it in.
I tell you what, it already has got an incredible aroma.
It's about to get much better.
This is the fun part, to me.
Anybody who has ever worked with fresh basil
knows there's no substitute for fresh herbs.
So as you're looking at this right now
here's some beautiful basil.
Tear it in half.
This is actually intended to be relatively
good- sized pieces that will break up and cook
into the sauce and the only part I'm keeping out
is that little part where all the stalks are.
I love using fresh herbs in as much of my cooking as possible.
I tell you what, there are so many great farmers
markets, stores that have all fresh herbs.
They have come down in price some.
So again, we are going to tear great portion of this basil in.
And don't forget, a lot of these recipes when you're
watching get kind of complicated.
Go to our website:.
You will be able to get all of the details that you
might not have been able to remember.
What a great resource when you've got a wonderful website.
It looks like a whole lot of basil,
but believe it or not fresh basil will cook
into the sauce so well and it will not be
that predominant of a flavor.
So we will move that out-of-the-way
and now take time to stir all of that basil into the sauce.
I tell you what, it's almost like looking at holiday colors.
I was commenting earlier how often times the Italian food
is the color of their flag: red, white and green.
I don't think there is any coincidence that
those are the colors they chose.
Let's move over here and stir our pasta.
When you're cooking pasta, be careful that you
don't let it sit on the bottom of the pot.
It will congeal together and it might actually
burn on the bottom.
This 100% whole wheat pasta is a little bit denser
and heavier than traditional pasta.
So we are going to kick that heat down a little bit
so it's just at a light boil.
Our marinara sauce is working wonderful
and the main thing from this point on is just to stir
it from the bottom so that you don't end up
having it stick either.
Now, like I said, we have a lot to do today.
So let's have a little bit of fun here.
I'm going to take some beautiful eggplant, slice it.
We will slice it a half inch in thickness.
We only need four pieces, but I'm going
to cut a couple of extras just in case.
Beautiful fresh.
Again, buy fresh.
So what are we going to do with the eggplant?
Well, let me tell you.
Everywhere you go, you see eggplant Parmesan.
What is that?
It's breaded eggplant that's fried in grease.
Not the healthiest thing.
Here's an alternative.
Were going to take a whole different approach and actually
bake it with seasoned whole-wheat bread crumbs.
So this is gluten-free, much healthier
and it's got a wonderful flavor on top of all that.
So let's take a good look at what we've got.
We've got a little bit of milk.
This is actually skim milk.
One egg white is going to go into our wash.
By wash I mean that that is where you would
put the eggplant first before you put it
into the breadcrumbs.
So let's go ahead and make that wash, as I call it.
All we have to do here is separate out the egg yolk.
We are going to stir that egg in.
At this point we can remove this.
Stir that up well.
Some people put seasoning and spice in their wash.
That's fine if you want to do it.
Just try to stay away from salt.
You're going to notice that we haven't used salt.
Let's let that sit for a moment
and right in this pan, which is going to become
our dredging pan, we're going to end up mixing
our whole-wheat along with some cracked black pepper, garlic,
this is about a teaspoon of each.
You can go to our website and you'll be able
to get all the details in case you can't keep up
with what we're doing.
We do have a lot going on today.
So we've added in white pepper, a little garlic powder,
a little onion powder and black pepper.
Why?
The whole-wheat breadcrumbs are not seasoned
like you would when you see Italian breadcrumbs.
So you want to make sure you have a little flavor
in there and an easy way to do that,
just put it together, mix it this way.
And I think were just going to dredge them in there.
That works perfect.
So now we come back to our eggplant.
We're going to have a little fun here.
Mix that egg white up just a hair more.
It looks perfect, by the way.
Take eggplant in the wash, submerge it
and then pop it into the breadcrumbs.
Now, that's exactly the way you want it to look.
I've got a greased pan here and we're
going to pop that eggplant right on that pan.
One, two and three is really what
our portion was going to be.
Then they're going to go into the oven.
You know what I may do?
We love the crew here.
You guys are awesome.
So I may throw a few extra in just to make sure
everyone gets a taste of this, because I love this.
Such a great way to do eggplant a little differently
and a little healthier.
So let's go ahead and knock out just a few more.
And it's simple.
The fun part about this, you can do this
with your kids in the kitchen.
They can have a great time while they're in there working.
They get their hands dirty.
It really is the perfect thing to do.
And when these come out, this can be done
with chicken for the kids, this can be done with shrimp.
You can basically bake anything that you now fry -
catfish -- and enjoy it and have a much healthier meal.
So let's go ahead.
You're going to have to follow me because
we are going to head over to the oven.
I've got that oven on.
It is on 400°.at that temperature, it won't take
long for those to get nice and crispy.
So now we are back and let's stir little bit.
How do you know when your pasta is done?
Guys, you want to keep it a little crunchy,
al dente it is called in Italy.
That just means that when you bite into it,
your teeth feel a little bit of tension.
You don't want it to fall apart.
And with wheat pasta, it doesn't hold together
because it doesn't have gluten.
Gluten is the hardness in pasta that keeps it there.
So you do not want to overcook them.
What is the easy way?
There really is no easier way.
Get one, take it, try it.
It's almost there.
A couple of more minutes.
And you might want to cook yours a little different.
Everybody has their own favorite flavoring that
they do as far as how much they cook the pasta.
The marinara sauce is coming along fantastically.
I wish you could get that aroma.
And you can see all the beautiful colors
in there working so well.
We are back now to where we're going to finish
and actually have some time to look at what we're
going to do with our shrimp.
Then we will pull back and double check on our eggplant.
And I'm keeping a pan warm.
What we're going to do is take the last little touch
of the eggplant in this back skillet
and when I pull them out, they are going
to be cooked thoroughly.
They're going to have a nice crispness on them.
But when we are finishing it, I want to hit them
in the pan just to sear them,
just to give them that really great flavor.
They are never going to be quite the same as frying,
but this is going to have such a good flavor,
you won't feel like you are missing anything
and that is the challenge when you're cooking healthy.
I really believe all of these recipes will help change
the way you cook so go to our website:.
You will be able to get all of these recipes.
And I think the neat part is all
of the nutritional breakdown will be there.
So you'll have a good idea.
There's all types of different constraints
that people have on their diet these days.
It might be that you can't eat gluten.
It might be you can't have sugar.
It may be you are trying to reduce your carbohydrates.
I promise you at MPBonline.org/fittoeat
you're going to be able to find the recipe
that will suit your diet.
Then all you've got to do is take that recipe,
maybe twist it up and put shrimp one day,
chicken the next and so on.
Before we get started on the shrimp, our pasta is finished.
So we are going to take it off of the heat.
This is a nifty little setup.
I guess I ought to show you this.
All it is is a colander in a large bowl so that when
you drop the pasta, you can take it
and immediately get it out of the hot water.
You have to remember, pasta keeps cooking.
As soon as you take it off, you think my pasta is done.
No.
Don't make that mistake because every minute
it's sitting in water, it is still cooking.
Let's get rid of that hot water because
we don't need that anymore.
We're going to have the perfect amount of pasta.
Remember when you cook pasta, if you got 4 ounces
that you cooked, it doubles in weight when it absorbs water.
So it becomes about 8 ounces.
All we did here is put together about
two and a half to three ounces so
our pasta portion size is nice and small.
Let's take a quick stir here.
Wow!
The colors look so good and I tell you what.
The challenge that you will have is to find
the particular tomatoes that you really enjoy
that have the ripeness on a consistent basis.
I'm a nut about that.
What do I mean by that?
Sometimes you will see tomatoes
and they are green at the end.
What is that going to do to your sauce?
That sauce is going to end up being bitter.
You're going to end up having to add sugar
to the sauce which, with the tomatoes I use,
I never add sugar.
You really don't need to.
But if you were going to,
try a sugar substitute like sucralose.
Instead of loading your food full of sugar,
we are trying to get you away from salt, sugar,
carbohydrates, if possible.
I think you can do it and still enjoy your food.
That's the challenge.
I'm doing it myself.
I think it's the way to try to keep yourself in shape
as you get a little bit older.
Unfortunately, I'm not getting any younger.
Now we are going to put this pan on high.
Before we leave this corner, we are
going to check on our eggplants.
It's looking good.
I can see the smoke coming off the top.
Going to peak at the bottom just to see how they're doing.
Turn one over, and we will give them a hair more.
Let's go ahead, I think we can actually
turn all of them over.
Let's bring it out so you can
actually see what I'm doing.
I'll get a comfortable pan holder.
I'll bring it right here in the center.
And we will turn these over.
They are browning very nicely on the bottom.
We will pop them back to that hot oven.
And then when all is said and done,
sear them for that last step.
And you will not believe how good these are.
You're really not.
Back in the oven.
Again, I know it sounds like a lot of repetition,
stir your sauce.
Don't forget to stir your sauce.
If you don't, you'll be sorry
because it will stick on the bottom.
And once something burns in the sauce, it's scorched.
Unfortunately, once that happens,
you really can't fix it.
So don't allow it to happen.
You got to constantly watch.
And this is something you can do ahead.
You can make your marinara sauce ahead,
have it sitting in your kitchen so that when
your guests come, you don't have to constantly
be laboring over your sauce.
I would suggest that you do this ahead.
So let's get started on the shrimp.
These are beautiful.
This is a recipe that I love and it's spinach,
shrimp, and roasted red peppers that we
basically take and sauté in a tiny bit of oil.
About a teaspoon of garlic.
A little pinch of crushed red pepper.
In case you don't know it, I like spice.
If you're going to eat healthy,
I think it only makes sense that you
put a little flavor and pizzazz in.
Add your shrimp.
And now on the side, we've taken beautiful,
fresh roasted red bell peppers.
I put them over an open flame, kind of skinned them
and then slice them.
Now here is your choice.
Many of you will have frozen spinach
and probably have it all the time in your house.
You can use frozen spinach in this dish and it's nice.
But personally, I would much rather use
actual fresh spinach.
I have them both here and what I'm going to do
is take a little touch of both.
There's the frozen.
It even says this if you go to our website.
It even tells you in case you can't
get fresh spinach, that you can use frozen.
But I love it.
Let's throw that in.
Most times when you get to this point,
you would add more oil.
Instead of that, we are going to deglaze that pan.
And by deglazing that pan, all that means
is get everything that cooked onto the pan off.
And all I used just then was water.
That's all it was.
So simple.
You can already see in the pan how many
of the shrimp have already browned so nicely.
I'm telling you, it is a great dish.
Let's go ahead.
We're going to start thinking about plating this dish
because we've got a lot going on here.
What I need to find, we're going to use one little cup
because we are going to put our marinara sauce on the side.
I kid around with people a lot about sautéing in the pan
so that you get that nice turn, and the easiest way
to do it is to learn with a piece of toast.
I will talk about that until I see you doing it
because it really isn't that hard to do.
Marinara sauce, believe it or not right now
it's perfectly edible because those tomatoes
are so incredible.
Look at that sauce.
We are going to turn the heat down to low
and just let it simmer.
Turn this down to low because what we are
about to do is take our portion of our pasta and put
about 5 ounces, that's all we're doing now,
we are not making this a heavy meal.
We started with a half teaspoon of oil.
We're going to add another half teaspoon.
No more.
Do not put too much oil.
The whole idea of this is to keep it nice and healthy.
It looks so good and the aroma, I'm telling you,
the aroma of the dish is beautiful.
It's the colors of Italy.
It looks so good.
You ready for this?
A little bit of oil in this pan in back.
Going to go ahead and head over to get our eggplant out,
sear it and then put this meal together
because we are basically done.
Eggplant looks great.
It looks just the way we want to.
Make a little extra room right here in the center
because we're going to put them right in the middle.
There we go.
We have this pan good and hot.
Let's go ahead and take one.
Let's get the tongs and make it a little bit easier.
Two, and the one that tried to escape.
You're not going anywhere.
Going to get a spoonful of our marinara sauce
to go on the side to take and dip our eggplant in.
Turn our eggplant.
Looks so good.
Perfectly brown.
Set that on the side.
And basically, we are done.
Going to get this pasta, put it directly over on the side.
And I tell you what, if that isn't a meal fit
for a king, I don't know what is.
It's got the beautiful colors of Italy,
the red, the green, the white.
Incredible flavor, light, heart healthy pasta,
great flavor baked eggplant.
And I tell you what, turning that around
in looking at it, to me, that is the heart of Italy.
It is simple ingredients combined in a way
to make outstanding food.
You can take a slice of the eggplant,
dip it in the marinara.
Maybe take a little dab of the marinara,
throw it into the pasta or eat the pasta simply by itself.
Nice and light.
And to me, that is the essence of real Italian cooking.
I enjoy the fact that it comes out so simple, so light.
And remember, you can find all my recipes
with the nutritional information on our website:.
I'm Chef Rob Stinson.
Thanks for watching Fit to Eat.
♪♪
This program was made possible in part by:
Family traditions are never more important
than when families gather around the dinner table
to celebrate special occasions.
Farm Families of Mississippi share
the bounty of the harvest with families
throughout the state and even the nation.
Chances are that your gatherings include
delicious sweet corn, baked sweet potatoes
and a rich, golden pecan pie.
Buy Mississippi-grown products.
It's good for your family
and it's good for Mississippi.
The Farm Families of Mississippi.
Support for Fit to Eat comes from
Mississippi Seafood Marketing a division
of The Department of Marine Resources.
From our waters to your table.
Wild-caught gulf-fresh seafood is fresh, local and healthy.
Information at DMR.MS.GOV