Eggplants with Veal Meatballs and Pecorino Cheese
CATEGORIES
INGREDIENTS
  • Cooking Time: 20-30 mins
  • Servings: 4
  • Preparation Time: 30 mins
  • 4 small eggplants
  • 250 g ground veal
  • 4 slices of bread
  • 100 ml milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 40 g of grated Parmigiano cheese
  • 1 tablespoon parsley 2 shallots
  • 40 g soft pecorino cheese
  • 2 ripe tomatoes
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • salt, pepper
  • flour
DIRECTIONS
  1. Cut the bread into cubes and let it soak in milk for a few minutes.
  2. Squeeze the bread and mix with the meat, the egg, the finely minced garlic, the grated Parmigiano, the chopped parsley, salt and pepper to your taste.
  3. With wet hands, form very small meatballs. Mine were size of a teaspoon. The smaller the better.
  4. Carefully wash and dry the eggplants. Cut the top of one side, and scoop the pulp leaving the shell about 1/2 cm thick. Chop the pulp.
  5. Put some oil in a large enough skillet and brown the meatballs that you previously dredged in flour.
  6. In another deep skillet saute the onions, add the chopped eggplant pulp, a little salt and pepper, and stirfry until the eggplant is just soft. Add the meatballs and plenty of chopped fresh basil.
  7. Cut the pecorino cheese and the tomatoes into cubes.
  8. Fill the eggplants with the meatballs adding the cubes of cheese and tomatoes. Drizzle with oil.
  9. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°C for about 20 minutes (it took me a bit longer because *see the note). You may need to cover them with a piece of aluminium foil so they don't burn.
  11. NOTE: Although I cooked them longer than the recipe said, the eggplants were not done as they should have. So I think it would be much better to pre-bake empty eggplants, for about 10 minutes, before filling them.