Baked Eggplant Wrapped Soutzoukakia

 

This dish is a winner in my cooking classes.  The use of mince is usually, lets be real here,  perceived as inferior to use when having a dinner party.  Not so in a Greek household!! When I started my cooking class journey over 10 year ago, convincing people to add anything 'mince' related to the menu was a bit of struggle...Well for the first 30 seconds... Then I would reel off some of my favourite greek mince meat based dishes.  Keftethes, soutzoukakia, gouvarklakia, dolmathes avgolemono, gemista, mousaka, pastitsio...You get the picture.....

This dish reminds me of summer in Greece....the dish most likely came from Asia Minor with the Greek refugees in the early 1920's.  We call this cuisine 'Politiki Kouzina" (cuisine from Constantinople) or 'Anatolitiki" - (cuisine from the East).  This is my family background hence my love for spices.

Traditionally both eggplant and soutzoukakia (meatballs) are fried then finished off in the oven with a tomato sauce.  I make a lighter version by baking instead of frying the eggplant and the meatballs are only baked. 

Ingredients (makes about 15)

2 eggplants 

olive oil

300g beef or lamb mince

300g pork mince

1/2 minced onion

1 egg

100g of stale bread

water to rehydrate bread

4 tsp 'Politiki Kouzina' spice mix

or follow soutzoukakia smyreika recipe

1 tbs chopped parsley

extra salt or spices to your taste

Sauce

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 tsp tomato paste mixed with 1/4 cup water

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tbs olive oil

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp chili flakes

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1. Remove the stem and slice the eggplant long ways in thin strips

2. Baste eggplant with olive oil on both sides and sprinkle with sea salt

3. Place on baking sheet lined tray and bake until just soft..approx 15 minutes

4. Place the stale bread in a bowl with some water and leave aside

5. In a mixing bowl add both pork and beef mince, minced onion, parsley, egg, spices 

6. Remove excess water from the bread and squeeze bread through fingers to mush it up.  Add this to the bowl with mince mixture.

7.  Knead the mince well.  Squish through fingers for at least a couple of minutes ensuring that ALL ingredients are incorporated.  Take a bit of the mixture and cook, then taste.  Add more spices etc if needed.

8. Lay one of the eggplant slices on a chopping board, grab an amount of the meat mixture (small mandarin sized) and shape into sausage. Just long enough for the largest part of eggplant to cover.  Then roll.

9. Repeat this and place neatly in your cooking tray.

10. For the sauce, add the can of tomato,  tomato paste mixture, salt, sugar, chilli flakes and olive oil in a bowl and mix 

11. Pour carefully over the eggplant soutzoukakia and bake for approximately 50 minutes in a 190˚ Celsius fan forced oven or until soutzoukakia are cooked through and some of the eggplant and tomato mixture is slightly charred.  Allow to sit for about 20 minutes 

12. Sprinkle with feta....and eat when warm to room temperature on a balmy summer night along with a Greek salad and a chunk of bread for dipping into the sauce and salad.

Just about to go into the oven

Kali Orexi

Kalliroy aka Carol