I don’t have a lot of experience cooking with lamb, but I recently picked up a pound at the farmers’ market. It’s supposed to be so healthy – a lean red meat, lots of iron and B vitamins, and I liked the idea of, in this small way, being a locavore (one who eats food produced locally).
The lamb became part of this recipe, inspired by a dish I used to order in an Italian restaurant many years ago. The original used beef to stuff the eggplant, but surely artistic license carries over to the kitchen.
Ingredients
2 eggplant
1 lb. ground lamb
½ T. olive oil (optional)
½ t. salt
¼ t. black pepper
dash nutmeg
dash cayenne pepper
3 T. Italian parsley, chopped
2 T. mint, chopped
½ c. onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. tomato paste
3 tomatoes, diced and seeded
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Pierce the eggplant three or four times with a fork; place on a baking sheet and bake until tender, 30 – 45 minutes. Cool.
- Slice in half lengthwise. Scoop out and dice the eggplant flesh and seeds leaving ¼ inch attached to the skin, save the eggplant halves.
- In a frying pan, combine the diced eggplant and all other ingredients except the tomato paste and diced tomatoes; brown the lamb, adding the olive oil if the meat is very lean.
- Stir in the last two ingredients.
- Return the four eggplant halves to the baking sheet, fill with the meat mixture, and bake at 350 for 30 – 35 minutes.
Serves 4
An accountant by trade and a food blogger since 2009, Lois Britton fell in love with Polish cuisine during the years she lived in Poznań, Poland. As the creator of PolishHousewife.com, she loves connecting readers with traditional Polish recipes. Lois has a graduate certificate in Food Writing and Photography from the University of South Florida. She is the author of The Polish Housewife Cookbook, available on Amazon and on her website.
Kathleen
This looks totally amazing. I love both lamb and eggplant. This has to be a southern Italian recipe which generally are my fav!!!! 😉