20 May, 2021

Melanzane Ripiene/Stuffed Eggplant

Comments : 1 Posted in : Second Dishes on May 20, 2021 by : CalabreseDaughter

If I mention to friends that I’m making my mother’s eggplant recipe, they instantly think of eggplant parmigiano. But we never ate eggplant parmigiano growing up. We ate stuffed eggplant (melanzane ripiene), and it is another family favorite. Melanzane ripiene can be eaten as a second dish or as a main dish. It is delicious with some nice crusty bread when first baked, reheated as a leftover, or even eaten cold. My brother recently called me to ask about my mother’s recipe for stuffed eggplant which made me crave them too! So, I decided to make them for my next post.

Like most dishes in Italy, there can be regional variations and then of course family recipes. This recipe uses ground meat and is fried, but my mother also made it without meat. This is an easy recipe but does require patience while making it.

Here’s how to make them.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 diced onion
• 3 cups pureed tomatoes (if you can’t use fresh tomatoes, you can either buy them already pureed or do it yourself by using canned San Marzano peeled tomatoes and blending them in a blender)
• salt to taste (~1/2 tablespoon)
• fresh basil leaves
• optional chili pepper
• eggplant
• ~1 pound ground beef
• ~3/4 – 1 cup breadcrumbs
• ~1/2 cup grated pecorino cheese
• 1 egg
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• fresh chopped parsley
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste
• ~ 1 tablespoon of olive oil

First start with basic sauce. This sauce can be used as the basis for a multitude of recipes.

To a sauce pot heated over medium high heat add the olive oil. Thinly dice an onion, add it to the heated olive oil and cook until translucent (about 2 to 3 minutes), stirring occasionally so it does not brown. Add the pureed tomatoes to the pot and salt to taste (~ 1/2 tablespoon), a few fresh basil leaves and then the optional chili pepper if you like a little kick of spice. Cover and simmer gently on low heat for about an hour. The sauce should be thick. If it is too thin, cook a little longer uncovered to reduce it. If it is too thick, add a little water to thin it out.

While this is cooking get started on the eggplant.

Cut the washed and dried eggplant lengthwise. Add it to a pasta pot filled with boiling water and cook until it is soft in the center (about 30 minutes). You can test this by piercing it in the deepest part of the eggplant with a fork. Once cooked through drain in a colander and allow the eggplant to cool down until it can be handled. Next take each eggplant half and scrape out the inside with a fork making sure not to break the shell since you will need these for stuffing. Add the scraped out eggplant center to a bowl with the ground beef, breadcrumbs, grated pecorino cheese, egg, garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper and combine. Add the eggplant and beef mixture to a large pan with about 1 tablespoon of heated olive oil. While frying the eggplant and beef mixture add a large serving spoonful of sauce.

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Once the eggplant and beef mixture is cooked, it is ready to be stuffed into the eggplant shells. To the base of a baking dish spread some sauce to cover the bottom. To each eggplant shell spoon some sauce and then fill each with the eggplant and beef mixture and place them in the baking dish. Spoon sauce over each stuffed eggplant and top with grated pecorino cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees for about 30-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the eggplant to rest for about 15 to 20 minutes to avoid a sloppy mess when dishing it out to serve.

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