Eggplant in foil
- Nutrition Facts
- Calories: 140
- Protein: 7.87
- Fats: 10.75
- Carbohydrates: 1.82
Eggplants with their unique taste conquered cooks in almost all corners of the earth. However, connoisseurs of cooking in the East and Europe have the greatest love for cooking these fabulously beautiful vegetables. Today we will cook a European dish - stuffed eggplants in foil in the oven. A simple stuffing made from tender chicken fillet, converted into minced meat along with herbs, will give the dish an indescribable flavor, and a spicy cheese crust will be a great addition to baked vegetables and will appeal to everyone without exception.
A bit of history
Eggplant is a longevity vegetable! In the East, it is called that way, but few people know that poisonous properties were attributed to wild eggplant, but only until it was cultivated. It happened more than 1500 years ago in China or India. Eggplant first appeared in Europe in the 8th century. It was the Europeans who were not particularly in a hurry to eat this culture, considering it to the last ornamental and poisonous plant. Melizzana vegetable (from the Latin mala insane - crazy apple) - that's what the natives of Italy called it, unlike the Asians. When the Europeans nevertheless recognized the amazing taste of eggplant and great benefits, it became not only an integral edible component in European recipes, but also the main ingredient in a dish, for example, as in ours: βEggplant in foilβ.
To prepare the dish you will need:
- Eggplant "Albatross" - 2 pcs.;
- Chicken fillet 400 g;
- Paprika - 2 pinches;
- Nutmeg - 2 pinches;
- Cheese - 75 g;
- Chicken egg - 1 pc.;
- Salt - 2 tbsp. spoons;
- Vegetable (olive oil) -3 teaspoons;
- Curly parsley and tomato - in addition.
A simple recipe for baked eggplant in foil
- First, let's prepare the filling for the blue ones - this is also what wonderful bright purple vegetables are called.
Skip the chicken fillet in a large meat grinder and break one egg into minced meat.
For the filling, twist the chicken fillet in a meat grinder and mix the minced meat with the egg.
- Add salt, ground paprika, mixed with nutmeg.
Season the minced meat with nutmeg, paprika and other spices, and certainly salt.
- Mix until smooth. At first it may seem strange that the filling is prepared without the addition of onions or garlic - it is, and is done in order to preserve the subtle aroma of spices.
Stir the minced meat ingredients well.
- The second step is to prepare the eggplant. We have only two of them, but what a magnificent, large and fleshy vegetables. We wash, wipe and cut each into three parts. We lower the salt water at room temperature for about ten minutes if we are afraid of bitterness from the peel, but let's say in secret that properly grown eggplants (in warmth, with good watering and the necessary humidity) never taste bitter - ours are just like that.
For this dish we will use large eggplants, which should be washed and cut across into three equal parts. To get rid of bitterness, put prepared vegetables in salted water.
- Cut the pulp with a sharp knife so that you get low cups, but without a bottom.
Now cut out the pulp from each eggplant to get bagel-like shapes.
- The approximate size of the resulting eggplant blanks is 8-10 cm in diameter and 5-7 cm in height.
Ready for stuffing eggplants should be about 10 cm in height and at least 5 cm in diameter.
- Alternately fill eggplant forms with a dense layer of minced chicken, first placing them on foil cut into squares or rectangles (30 cm x40 cm). We canβt do without it, because our dish is still eggplant baked in foil.
Each eggplant is filled with ready-made minced chicken and placed on pieces of foil large enough to completely wrap the workpiece.
- We collect sheets in the form of skirts around vegetable blanks, pulling them to the center, but do not close yet. Sprinkle the center with grated cheese and sprinkle a little with vegetable or olive oil.
Now we make a mold from foil, as in the photo, sprinkle the eggplant with grated cheese and lightly sprinkle with vegetable oil.
- Now we tightly close our eggplants, rearrange them on a small baking sheet, also covered with a sheet of foil, and send them to the oven, heated to 200 Β° for 30-40 minutes. The warmer the eggplants are, the faster they will cook without losing moisture, therefore, it turns out to be very juicy.
Then we close each eggplant with foil and put it in turn on a baking sheet lined with foil. It is necessary to bake an appetizer in an oven preheated to 200 degrees for at least 30 minutes.
- Serve eggplant in foil on a large platter, covered, to keep them hot until someone wants to try them and opens them on their own plate. Eggplant goes well with tomato sauces, other vegetables and herbs, so you can offer the guest a sprig of greens and sliced ββββtomatoes in addition to the dish.
Stuffed eggplants are served in foil with tomatoes and fresh herbs.
Dish Variations:
- We will form eggplants in the shape of boats, cutting them in half - this is one of the options.
- We will cover the boats with cheese without adding minced meat. We also wrap it in a foil coat and bake in the oven.
- Or close the recesses with minced meat mixed with eggplant pulp, without cheese and without butter - a great variation for people who are on a diet.
The benefits of the dish
Eggplant in foil in the oven is a dish that is certainly healthy and dietary due to the method of preparation. In the process of baking, not only the maximum amount of fiber is preserved, but also an extensive composition of valuable minerals, a balanced complex of microelements and vitamins contained in the pulp and in the peel, which we did not specifically remove from vegetables. Fans of baked eggplants almost never complain about problems with being overweight, with kidneys and heart, and all because when eating blue ones, water metabolism in the body normalizes and cholesterol levels in the blood decrease.
The recipe for Baked Eggplants in foil came close to completion, and it really turned out to be very simple. Europeans, unlike Eastern chefs, do not like to mix a large number of ingredients, especially with a pronounced taste in one dish.
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