Rolled Eggplant with Minced Meat and Spaghetti

Rolled Eggplant with Minced Meat and Spaghetti

Ingredients:

2 big eggplants sliced

350ml of tomato juice

200g of spaghetti 

50g of cheese

50g of parsley

200g of minced meat or ground beef

1 teaspoon of black pepper

1 teaspoon of ginger

1 teaspoon of cumin

1 teaspoon of saffron

1 teaspoon of oil

How to prepare the Rolled Eggplant with Minced Meat and Spaghetti Recipe:

Step 1:

Start off by slicing the eggplants lengthwise into thin slices. Sprinkle salt on both sides of the eggplant slices and place them into a colander. Allow the eggplant slices to sit for about an hour or so. This is done so that we can get as much water out of the eggplants as possible. After about an hour, rinse off the excess salt and pat it dry with a paper towel.

Heat up some oil in a pan. Once the oil (I recommend using the natural oil)  is hot, place a couple of eggplant slices into the pan. Be really careful when you do this!  Also remember not to overcrowd the pan. Fry until the eggplant slices becomes soft and golden brown on both sides.

Remove the eggplant slices from the pan and place them onto some paper towels. This is done so that we can get as much oil out of the eggplant slices as possible. You can put more paper towels on top of the eggplant slices and lightly pat it down too. That will help in removing as much oil as possible. Once you have done that, set the fried eggplant slices aside.

Step 2:

Boil the spaghetti with a pinch of salt and a few drops oil.

Step 3:

We put the minced meat, parsley, spices and a few drops of oil in the bowl, then we mix them very well.

Make the mixture minced meat like fingers shape, as you see in the photo.

Then we put the fingers minced meat in the oven.

Cooking time is 20 minutes

Temperature is 170C°/338F°

Step 4:

Next, cook up your favorite long pasta. It can be spaghetti, fettuccine, linguine or even angel hair pasta. I used spaghetti and it worked out pretty well. 

Then we put the cooked spaghetti with tomato juice, parsley and spices in the bowl on the medium heat on the stove.

Cooking time is 10 minutes.

Step 5:

Here's when we assemble everything together. Place a slice of eggplant on a flat surface. Scoop up some pasta and place it in the middle of the eggplant slice (just like the photo).

Then, sprinkle on some feta cheese (you could also use mozzarella cheese if you like) onto the pasta and add the fingers of minced meat.

Roll up the eggplant and place it on top of the pasta sauce that we placed earlier in the deep baking dish. Make sure that you place the eggplant rolls seam side down, so that it doesn't unravel during cooking.

Once you have finish rolling up all your eggplants, scoop on some pasta sauce on top of the eggplant rolls. Sprinkle on some Italian herbs, black pepper, parsley and it's ready to go into the oven.

Cooking time is 30 minutes

Temperature is 170C°/338F°

I'm glad I made this recipe because it was totally delicious. Go ahead, try it and tell me what you think!

Enjoy!