Turkish style stuffed eggplants braised in bush tomato sauce
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About this Recipe
By: Sheridan Rogers
Ever used bush tomatoes in your cooking? Juleigh Robins, owner of Outback Spirit foods uses them to great effect in this marvellous cross-cultural creation, inspired by one of Rick Stein’s dishes. Please support her Outback Spirit Foundation to raise $$ this weekend to help indigenous farmers grow native bush foods to support their incomes and enterprises. Read my story. “I love Rick Stein’s cooking and I love his appreciation of the food of other cultures so I’m sure he won’t mind that I was inspired by his Turkish Style Eggplants in a recent publication and just had to adapt it to include native food. I could just imagine the taste of bush tomatoes in his recipe of Turkish Stuffed Eggplants. So thank you Rick Stein for a great dish which showcases our Indigenous bush tomato so beautifully,” says Juleigh.
Ingredients
- small whole eggplant 4, ends trimmed
- olive oil 1 tablespoon
- garlic 2 cloves, crushed
- middle rashers bacon 2, sliced into batons
- leek 1, cleaned and finely sliced
- tomatoes 2 medium, chopped
- onion 1, diced
- lemon 1, finely grated zest
- Outback Spirit Bush Tomato Chutney 1 jar
- coriander 1/2 bunch, chopped
- salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste
- goats cheese 120g
- crushed tomatoes 1 x 400g tin
- Outback Spirit Bush Tomato Ketchup 1 bottle
- lemon 1, zest and juice
Preheat oven to 200c. Sit each eggplant on the bench and determine which is the ‘top’ after they come to rest. Using a sharp knife make a wide slit in each of the eggplants and using a dessertspoon scoop out the flesh, making sure you leave a good layer of eggplant flesh intact (approx 1-2cm). In a saucepan heat the olive oil and add the garlic and onion and sauté until tender. Add the bacon, leek and tomato and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Add the Outback Spirit Bush Tomato Chutney and the lemon zest and cook for a further 5 minutes or until the sauce has reduced and the texture is ‘gooey’. Remove from the heat and fold through the chopped coriander and season with pepper and salt. Half fill each eggplant and then add half the goats cheese evenly amongst the eggplants. Complete filling the eggplants with the bush tomato flavoued mixture and top with the remaining goats cheese. Mix the crushed tomatoes with the Outback Spirit Bush Tomato Ketchup and the lemon zest and juice. Spoon into the base of a casserole or baking dish and place the prepared eggplants onto the sauce. Cook in the oven for 1 hour or until the eggplants are completely cooked and tender. The sauce should be reduced and thick by this time. Serve immediately with the sauce. Accompany with a rocket and iceberg salad with fresh ripe pear, thin slices of avocado, shaved parmesan and aged balsamic vinegar