Stuffed Eggplant

From my previous post, I noticed I have not yet posted about eggplant. My oh so loved vegetable, so I thought I could no longer ignore it and decided to cook one of my favourite eggplant dishes. 

Close up of heaven

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Stuffed eggplants are such an easy thing to do, you can pretty much stuff them with anything you like. This time, just for something fun, I thought I would stuff my eggplant with an egg! I thought the visual would be quite appealing and the play on words was too much to resist.

Egg within egg

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I did something simple this time, only because I cooked this on a week night and I really can't be bothered cooking after 1 1/2 hr commute time. So here is the recipe for egg stuffed eggplant.

Serves two people

INGREDIENTS

2 small to medium sized eggplants

Handful of cherry tomatoes or 2-3 tomatoes, halved

1 onion diced

1 garlic clove, diced

1 chicken stock cube

400 gm lean minced meat

2 eggs, boiled with soft-ish centres, cut in half

half a handful of bread crumbs

handful of grated tasty cheese

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 180C. In a medium sized pan saute onion and garlic in a little olive oil over medium heat. Continue to cook until soft, 2-3 minutes.

2. Add tomatoes and cook until soften, 2-3 minutes. Once tomatoes begin to soften, crush down with a potato masher and add chicken stock cube. Stir until cube is incorporated, then transfer to a medium sized mixing bowl and cool.

3. While tomato mixture is cooling, cut eggplant in half, remove centre of the eggplant with a spoon leaving a cavity for stuffing to be placed. (I usually throw the extra eggplant in the oven with a little oil oil and have it on toast as a kind of appetizer) Place eggplant on a baking tray and coat with a little no stick olive oil spray, this helps to prevent it from discolouring and will help it get a bit of a crisp in the oven.

4. Add meat to tomato mixture and stir to combine, add enough bread crumbs so the mixture is not too wet, about half a handful. Fresh bread crumbs are the best for this, but dry will be just as good. Season mixture with salt and pepper to taste.

5. Place a small amount of meat in the bottom of eggplant cavity, this will make a small resting place for the egg to sit on. Place half an egg in the cavity and cover with 1/4 of the meat mixture. Repeat for the rest of the eggplants.

6. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the egg plant begins to soften. Then top each quarter with a little tasty cheese, or parmesan cheese and bake for another 5-10 minutes or until top is golden. Serve with a side salad.

Hopefully soon my eggplant crop will have plenty of fruit to harvest, so look out for more irresistable egg-planty goodness!