My two favorite ways of preparing eggplant at home are roasting them in the oven and stir-frying them "Asian style". Roasting eggplant changes the flavor making it more savory, and the texture is better, in my opinion.
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| Raw eggplant, seasoned |
All you need to do when roasting eggplant is to cut it in half, season both sides with salt and pepper, and then put it cut side down into a glass baking dish with about a 1/4 inch of extra virgin olive oil. Bake at 400 degrees F for about 40 minutes until the eggplant is tender and the skin is wrinkly and slightly brown.
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| Roasted eggplant, prepped and cut to be stuffed |
The eggplant should be tender and golden brown after it has been roasted. You can eat it straight like this or make it into a dip, but I like to take it a step further and stuff it.
As the eggplant is roasting, I like to brown some ground beef with mushrooms, using some season salt and Italian seasoning. Then I add in some tomato sauce making sure not to add too much, you don't want it to be too liquidy. You can also add in chopped fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, etc. After the ground beef and mushrooms have soaked up some of the tomato sauce and the flavors have had a chance to make friends, I layer it onto the eggplant and into the crevasses. If you didn't notice in the photo above, I like to cut the roasted eggplant so the stuffing has a place to go. I then add bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese on top of the stuffing. You can also add mozzarella cheese in addition to the Parmesan, but I didn't have any at the time. Put everything back into the oven under the broiler until the bread crumbs become a golden brown and the cheese has melted.
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| Stuffed eggplant |
I've tried this recipe on eggplant haters, and they even liked it. So don't take my word for it and try it yourself!
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