INGREDIENTS:
· 3 medium eggplants, cut into ¼ inch slices
· Olive oil spray
· 2 tbs olive oil, extra
· 1 red onion, diced
· 2 cloves garlic, crushed
· 2 stalks celery, sliced
· 1 carrot, diced
· 14 oz. canned diced tomatoes
· 14 oz. canned lentils, drained and rinsed
· ¼ cup tomato paste
· 1 tsp dried thyme
· 1 tsp dried tarragon
· 2 tbs wholemeal breadcrumbs
White sauce
· 2 tbs margarine
· 4 tbs plain flour
· 2 cups low fat soy or dairy milk
· 1/3 cup parmesan cheese
· 2 egg yolks
DIRECTIONS:
· Lightly spray eggplant slices with oil, cook in a large frypan until lightly browned.
· Meanwhile, heat extra oil in a saucepan, add onion, garlic, celery and carrot. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, lentils, tomato paste and dried herbs. Cook for a further 10 minutes.
· For white sauce, melt margarine in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and stir to combine, cook stirring for 3 minutes. Gradually add milk, stirring continuously until sauce is thick and smooth. Add cheese and stir until melted through. Remove from heat and add egg yolks.
· Line a greased 9 x 14 inch baking dish with 1/3 of the eggplant, top with half the tomato mixture, then half the remaining eggplant, followed by the remaining tomato mixture, then remaining eggplant. Top with white sauce and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Bake in a moderate oven, 350°F, for 40 minutes or until lightly golden.
Serving size: Serves 8
Prep and Cooking time: More than 1 hour
selected by Annie Levenson
4 comments:
I really enjoyed making and eating this dish. I have a vegetarian friend who I like to have over for dinner and will make this for him next time.
I liked the overall consistency and the white sauce was super yummy.
However, next time, I will let the eggplant sit in some salt for 1/2 an hour before cooking them. I thought that they were a bit bitter. Salting them would help.
Great recipe choice. Awesome for leftovers, as well.
I loved this recipe! Great choice, Annie. It will definitely be something I make again, and a great option for a dinner party when I need to serve a lot of people. Great alternative to mix things up from Lasagna, or Kara’s spinach pie. My only complaint was that my house was a bit smokey and smelly from the eggplant frying step, but well worth it. I used two pans at once for that to make the process go faster. And then reused one of the pans for the onion, celery, and carrot cooking. I used soy milk for the white sauce which worked surprisingly well. I was skeptical, but that is what I had in my refrigerator. It was a little difficult to get that sauce smooth, but I don’t know if that was a virtue of the soy milk, or just how that sauce is when adding in the flour. I also did not the read the recipe that carefully and ended up with a white sauce layer in the middle as well as on the top, but I don’t think it caused any problems. I clarified the wording on the blog for the rest of you after realized my mistake. We had two good hearty dinners out of it and a few lunches. Adam thought this was the best Food Among Friends recipe he’s had yet.
Sorry for the late post, but I totally forgot about this month's recipe until yesterday, so I rushed out to buy the ingredients and get cooking.
I was really excited about this one, especially after hearing the sneak previews, but ours was an unqualified disaster! Because Jeremy hates eggplant, I substituted layers of mushrooms, bell peppers, and summer squash, all of which should have been good flavor matches, right? I don't know if the substitute veggies released too much water or what, but the dish was a soupy, unholy cross between gruel and casserole...pretty gross. I can only blame myself, since the recipe seems to have worked for the Surwit girls.
The flavor of the tomato-lentil mixture was excellent, and I'd gladly serve that as a stand-alone stew, especially over rice, and maybe with a little crumbled feta for contrast. The crunchy breadcrumb topping was also yummy -- I used panko -- but the white sauce seemed a little bland.
I didn't feel like I could bring the leftovers to work, so I'll see what kind of cheesy magic might turn tonight's dinner into something better.
After having used every pot and pan in the house to assemble the components, I was hoping that this dish would live up to all that effort (and cleanup)...alas!
Update: I chopped up the leftovers and added another can of diced tomatoes to make a delicious stew with crumbled feta, so all was not lost!
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