This eggplant dish will pair perfectly with a fresh and light salad like Cucumber and Heirloom Tomato Salad.
My love affair with eggplant started when I was a little girl. My mum would make fried eggplant and tomato stacks flavoured simply with salt, pepper, garlic and mayonnaise. They always signaled the end of the summer and the beginning of harvest time for me. I don’t think my dad and brother were as keen on those tasty snacks, so eating them together with my mum became our bonding time! Sounds trivial but just think how many friends you’ve made by discovering you shared an affinity for a particular dish or ingredient! Food brings us together. It’s a tremendous force! So this harissa beef stuffed eggplant is a slight spin on the classic version made by my mum. I started cooking this recipe shortly after our first child was born as a tasty, lean meal. Delicious, nutritious and low on calories!
What Is Harissa?
I’ve often cooked this beef stuffed eggplant recipe with Italian flavours of basil and oregano. But this version is reminiscent of the flavours of North Africa with aromatic cumin, cinnamon and spicy harissa. This beef stuffed eggplant recipe combines the vibrancy of the late summer with its ripe eggplants and warmth and comfort of the autumn that come from cumin and cinnamon. Harissa is a hot chilli paste originally from North Africa but now readily available around the world. Just look in your ethnic aisle, it will be there! It has a deep flavour, but can be made in all sorts of variations, each with a slightly different flavour profile. Harissa usually comes as a paste, although it is possible to find harissa powder as well. A fairly small amount of harissa will go a long way and will be a unique and savoury to any dish where it is used.
How to Cook Eggplant
If you are not a fan of eggplant you can use butternut squash or zucchini but I do hope you try eggplants. They sometimes have a reputation of being spongy and tasteless but that only happens if they are undercooked. My go-to eggplant expert, Yotam Ottolenghi, says two things are essential for cooking eggplant to perfection: Although I feel the ‘lots of oil’ bit is tweakable, a hot oven is a must. For this recipe I brushed each eggplant half with 2 teaspoons of olive oil and cooked them at 220C/440F for 30 minutes. They came out perfectly scoopable!
More eggplant recipes
Russian Eggplant Caviar Smoky Baba Ganoush with Sumac Rustic Three Cheese Eggplant Lasagna Healthy Eggplant Parmesan
