Friday, August 14, 2009

Eggplant stuffed with cheese and tomato sauce



On Wednesday, we found ourselves at a bit of a loss. We had two small eggplants, lots of tomatoes, some sweet peppers, a full bunch of basil, and that's about it. After much cookbook reading, we walked to Berkeley Bowl for cheese.

Wash, remove the greens from two eggplants, slice them in half, and bake them face-down on an oiled pan for at least 40 minutes.

In a medium sauce pot, sauté thin-sliced onions in salted olive oil. When the onions are translucent, add diced tomatoes, and cook until the juices have rendered. Add capers, remove from the heat, and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix ricotta, grated provolone, and a little grated romano. Add minced basil and oregano, and one egg. Or, in our case, the garlic aioli and the leftover egg-white from the previous day.

When the eggplant is cooked, remove it from the heat, end let cool until handleable. Scoop out the inside of each eggplant, and save, because eggplant is yummy. Fill each eggplant with the cheese mixture, and place the eggplants in a baking dish with high sides. Cover everything with the tomato sauce, and if like me you have leftover everything, fill in around the eggplant with the cheese and tomatoes. Bake 10 minutes, so that the tomato sauce starts to bubble.

If you start with large eggplants (ours were very small), rather than stuffing half eggplants, slice the eggplant thin, salt each side and fry for a few minutes per side in oil, and then roll the cheese in the eggplant slices, cover everything with tomato, and bake ten minutes.

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