This recipe is ideal for a slightly more decadent night in your Airbnb. It’s a twist on a Georgian eggplant rolls which I love. The ingredients are simple and, although a little fiddly at the rolling stage, it’s pretty easy to do.
Ingredients
- 2 eggplants/ aubergines
- 2 cans chopped tinned tomatoes
- 5 gloves garlic – 3 for the sauce, two for the rolls
- 1 onion
- 500g lamb mince – half for the sauce, half for the rolls
Instructions
- Dice the onion
- Heat a little oil in a large saucepan
- Saute the onion until it’s softening (5-6 minutes)
- Finely chop the five cloves of garlic and add to the onion, followed by the lamb mince
- Once the mince is browned, set half of the mixture aside on a plate to cool
- Add the tinned tomatoes to the lamb still in the pan and bring to a simmer
- Season with salt, pepper and, depending on quality of tomatoes, a little sugar
- If you have it, you can add a glass of red wine or a stock cube to make the sauce more rich
- Leave to simmer for 20 minutes while you work on the rolls
- Slice the eggplant in half, then cut length ways into strips around 0.5cm
- Heat the eggplant to make it more pliable – this can be done in the microwave for 30s to 1 minutes or in a frying pan for 1-2 minutes on a medium heat. I personally prefer the latter but it does take longer
- Take each piece of eggplant starting from the long end roll it into a coil and place it in the tin opening up (see image)
- Take the set aside lamb mixture and evenly spoon into into each of the rolls – usually this is about a teaspoon
- Once you’ve finished with the rolls and the sauce has been simmered (and is tasty!), pour the sauce over the sauce over them in the tin. If the mixture looks a little dry, add a bit of water. It shouldn’t be too wet but you do want a bit of sauce*
- Bake for 25-30 minutes
Eggplant thickness
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After heating in pan
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Rolled into tin
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Filled with lamb mixture
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With sauce
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Post cooking
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Notes
Step 14: The last time I made this I poured 200ml of water over the top after adding the sauce