Date and feta stuffed eggplant rollatini
Soyeon Park
Photo by Soyeon Park
- Serves
- 2-3
- Prep Time
- 20 Minutes
- Cook Time
- 1 Hour 20 Minutes
This comfy and indulgent eggplant casserole is my Middle Eastern riff on the Italian eggplant rollatini. Roasted eggplant slices are filled with a sweet and tangy stuffing made with feta, ricotta, dates, and pine nuts, and then baked in homemade tomato sauce spiced with rosemary, oregano, cumin, and Aleppo pepper. It does have quite a long ingredient list, but they all add up to incredible depth of flavor. If you're short on time, feel free to use store-bought marinara sauce mixed with cumin and Aleppo chili flakes.
Ingredients
Date and feta stuffed eggplants
- 2 large eggplants, sliced lengthwise (1 cm-thick)
- Neutral oil, for drizzling
- 4 ounce feta cheese
- 2 ounce ricotta cheese
- 1/4 cup plain yogurt
- 1/3 cup pitted and chopped Medjool dates
- 1/3 cup toasted pine nuts, roughly chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- Grated parmesan, to serve
Spiced tomato sauce
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 large shallots, finely chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary
- 1/2 tablespoon fresh oregano
- 2 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 tablespoon Aleppo chili flakes
- 1/3 cup white wine
- 3 large ripe tomatoes, puréed
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Directions
- Step 1
Preheat oven to 400˚F. Salt the eggplant slices and let sit for about 5 minutes. Remove excess moisture using paper towel.
- Step 2
Drizzle the eggplant slices with oil and a pinch of salt, and bake for about 15 minutes until softened. Cool slightly.
- Step 3
While the eggplants are baking, make tomato sauce: On a skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat and cook shallots, garlic, rosemary, and oregano with a pinch of salt until softened and translucent. Add tomato paste, sugar, cumin, and Aleppo chili flakes and cook for 5 minutes.
- Step 4
Deglaze the skillet with wine, and stir in puréed tomatoes. Bring to a gentle boil, and simmer for about 20 minutes until thickened into a sauce. Pour the sauce into a 2-quart baking dish.
- Step 5
While the sauce is simmering, combine the feta, ricotta, yogurt, dates, pine nuts, and pepper in a bowl. Add about 2 tbsp of the mixture to one end of the eggplant slices, and roll it up. Nestle the rolls into the sauce, and bake in the oven for about 10-15 minutes, until the sauce is bubbly and eggplants are slightly browned. Top with grated parmesan to serve.