Mum’s Stuffed Eggplants

Preheat your oven to 200°C. Cut your eggplants in half. Place them onto a baking tray and spray them lightly with Bertolli Olive Oil. Bake for 20 minutes. Take your eggplants out of the oven, turn the oven down to 180°C and leave the eggplants to cool for 10 minutes. Using a spoon, scoop the flesh of the eggplant out of their skin. It’s best to follow the shape of the eggplant around with your spoon then peel the flesh away with your hands. You may need to cut the flesh away with a knife when it reaches the top part of the eggplant where the stem connects with the skin. Don’t worry if a few holes or tears are made in your eggplant skin when doing this step. Repeat this step with all the eggplants and set your eggplant flesh to the side.

Mix your bread in a blender until it is fine and crumbly and place into a large bowl. Add the oregano, garlic, eggs, salt and pepper to taste and eggplant flesh to the bowl with the bread and mix through with your hands. Apply quite a lot of pressure when combining all ingredients with your hands. I like to use a squeezing motion.

Place your eggplant shells onto a pre-lined baking tray. There will only be enough filling for 5 eggplant shells so discard the sixth or use in a separate recipe. Using your hands or a spoon, scoop the eggplant filling into the eggplant shells, packing it in quite nice and tightly. Using your index finger, make three deep indents into the eggplant and drizzle the olive oil into them. Bake at 180°C for 40 minutes. You want them to be golden and crispy on top. Serve with the tomato and basil sauce and a sprinkling of fresh basil and parmesan.

To make the sauce place an x like score at the bottom of each tomato roughly 2cm deep. Place the tomatoes into a large pot with boiling hot water so the skin can soften and easily peel off. Leave to soak for 5 minutes. Once the skin has become loose, discard of the hot water and peel the skin off the tomatoes. Roughly chop the tomatoes and set to the side.

In a large pot on a high heat, bring the olive oil to heat. Turn the heat down immediately, add the garlic and cook for 2 - 3 minutes until the garlic is fragrant and soft. Stir the garlic quite often to ensure it does not burn. Add the tomatoes, passata, brown sugar, a generous amount of salt and pepper to taste and the basil into the pot and leave to simmer for 30 minutes on a low heat, stirring occasionally. Set a few basil leaves to the side to serve. Keep tasting your sauce and adding more salt, pepper or sugar if needed.

Recipe by: @daenskitchen