Stuffed Eggplant with Beef and Cheese |
Ingredients:
- 3 medium size eggplants
- 1lb of ground beef
- 3 roma tomatoes
- 1/2 red bell pepper
- 1 onion
- Small bunch of fresh parsley
- Ground black pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup of shredded cheese
- 3 garlic cloves
- Paprika to taste
- Salt to taste
- 1/2 cup of water
- Oil
- Start off by hollowing eggplants: you can either slice each in half lengthwise (if they are big enough) and stuff each half, or slice a top part off like I did and carefully extract pulp using a knife and a spoon, make sure no not damage eggplant skin, you also don’t want to leave too much pulp on the skin, or it may not cook through evenly; safe the pulp:
- Salt hollowed eggplants inside generously with salt, do the same with eggplant pulp, set both aside for 15 mins or more to produce juice:
- Meanwhile blanche (remove skin from) tomatoes:
- Warm up oven to 350 F. Rinse eggplants of salt, arrange them in a baking pan and put pan to the oven for 20-25 mins (or until eggplant part which is close to the stem gets soft if pierced with a knife).
While eggplants are cooking, peel and chop onion, warm big skillet with a bit of oil up, add onions and fry them over moderate heat until colored, stir from time to time:
- Chop tomatoes, and once onions are ready, add them to the skillet; cook onions and tomatoes together over light simmer for about 5 mins; stir from time to time:
- Add chopped bell pepper:
- Rinse eggplant pulp of salt; squeeze extra liquid out and chop the pulp; add chopped pulp to the skillet; continue cooking vegetables together; don’t forget to stir (10 mins or so until eggplant is soft):
- Hopefully eggplants shells are ready by now (eggplant part which is close to the stem is soft when probed with a knife), take pan out the oven:
- Move eggplant shells to a plate to cool down a bit; and move half of vegetable mixture from the skillet to the baking pan:
- Increase heat under the skillet with remaining vegetables and add ground beef to them; using spatula break meat in pieces and fry them until not red anymore, stir with vegetables after that:
- Season with salt, ground black pepper and paprika to taste:
- Press garlic cloves in, mix:
- Cook for a minute, then add chopped parsley, mix and turn heat off:
- Using a spoon, stuff cooked eggplant shells with meat and vegetable mixture, arrange them in the baking pan over vegetables:
- Cover each eggplant with a layer of cheese:
- Pour half glass of water to the pan and put pan back to the oven (350F) for 20 mins:
- Remove cooked stuffed eggplants from the oven:
- Serve them hot with or without vegetables they were cooking with:
