Encased Stuffed aubergine

All Stuffed

Serves 4

 

Ingredients:

• 
  1 medium aubergine (about 300g)
• 25g potatoes flakes or 1 tablespoon plain flour
• 40g minced dry soya
• 50g fresh parsley
• 1 small red onion
• 50g roast or sundried tomatoes from the jar or fresh tomatoes
• 1 ready rolled puff pastry
• 20g raw sunflower seeds
• 1 table spoon paprika
• Salt & white pepper
• 20ml room temperature water.
• 1 Lemon
• Olive oil

Preheat the oven at 180C

Prep:

Cut the aubergine in half, remove some of the flesh leaving about 1cm of flesh all around the skin. To prevent the inside of the aubergine darkening, rub a bit of lemon juice in it and set it aside.

Cut in small pieces the flesh of the aubergine and place in a bowl.

Chop the parsley, onion and seeds. Keep them in separate bowls. Grate the lemon and set aside.

Rehydrate the soya mince by pouring on it 200ml of salted boiling water. Leave it aside for 10 minutes then, sieve & squeeze out the salted water. Set aside.

Method:

In a bowl, mix the cut aubergine flesh, potatoes flakes, half of the parsley, sunflower seeds, paprika, sundried tomatoes, salt and white pepper, lemon zest, mix well.

If you have chosen to use fresh tomatoes, the juice from the later will help to bind the stuffing. But since we are using roast tomatoes, it is the reason water is need to combine. The stuffing should be able to hold together.

Now that the mix is ready, stuff both halves of the aubergine and

stick them together then, drizzle about a table spoon of olive oil on the stuffed aubergine, then wrap in the pastry.

Place the aubergine on a buttered baking tray, score and pierce the sides of the pastry to allow stream to get out while it is cooking. Place in the oven at 180C for 1 hour.

Once the aubergine is ready, leave to rest for 10 minutes, then serve,

In the meantime stir fry the mince to accompany the dish:

Heat 2 table spoons of olive oil, add the onion and stir for 1 minute on high heat. We are not looking for the onion to brown here we need its flavour and the crunch.

After 1 minutes, add the mince soya and continually stir until the remaining water from the rehydration has evaporated. This should take 3-5 minutes.  Leave the mince to crisp a little bit add pepper and adjust the seasoning. Stir again and then add the other half of parsley. Stir for 2 minutes. That is ready. The mince should

take in all 10 minutes to get ready and can be done while the aubergine is resting.

Though the aubergine may still be moist, I recommend to serve this dish with some kind of sauce or dip. Mine here is served with a carrot sauce.

I will be posting the recipe of the carrot sauce here soon.

Thank you for reading and don’t forget to tell me what you think!

 

Et voila!

Bon Appétit!

Nash