Maureen Abood’s Eggplant With Lamb, Tomato and Pine Nuts
Updated July 8, 2020
- Total Time
- 2 hours
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 2large firm eggplants, cut into ½-inch slices
- 4tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2teaspoons kosher salt, more as needed
- 1medium yellow onion, finely diced
- 2garlic cloves, minced
- 1pound ground lamb or beef (80 percent lean)
- ½teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Black pepper
- ½tablespoon unsalted butter
- ½cup pine nuts
- 1(28-ounce) can tomato sauce, or 3½ cups homemade sauce (see recipe)
- 12ounces fresh mozzarella, sliced
Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)
478 calories; 37 grams fat; 14 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 15 grams monounsaturated fat; 5 grams polyunsaturated fat; 18 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams dietary fiber; 9 grams sugars; 23 grams protein; 854 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Heat broiler and line a baking sheet with foil or parchment.
- Step 2
Brush both sides of eggplant slices with 2 tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt. Arrange slices on prepared baking sheet and broil in batches until they are deep mahogany brown, turning once halfway through, 5 to 7 minutes per side.
- Step 3
Adjust the oven to 375 degrees with rack positioned in the center.
- Step 4
In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the remaining olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent, but not browned, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add ground lamb or beef, stirring frequently and breaking up meat into very small pieces with the side of a metal spoon. Season with remaining teaspoon salt, cinnamon and pepper. Sauté until meat is just cooked through. Taste and add more salt or pepper, or both, as needed.
- Step 5
In a medium skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add pine nuts and reduce heat to medium-low. Stir nuts to coat them with butter and continue stirring constantly until nuts are golden brown, 2 to 4 minutes. Keep a close watch over the nuts; they can burn quickly once they begin to brown. Transfer nuts to a bowl while still warm and salt them lightly.
- Step 6
Coat a 13-by-9-by-2-inch baking dish with remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Spread ½ cup of tomato sauce in the bottom of the dish. Lay ⅓ of the eggplant slices in a single layer over the sauce, covering as much surface area of the bottom of the dish as possible. Spoon half the meat evenly over eggplant. Pour ⅓ of the remaining tomato sauce evenly over meat. Sprinkle with ⅓ of the pine nuts. Layer again with eggplant, meat, tomato sauce and pine nuts. Finish with a layer of eggplant and cover with more tomato sauce, sprinkling top with pine nuts.
- Step 7
Pour 1 cup warm water around the perimeter of the baking dish. (Sauce will thicken as it bakes.) Cover pan with foil and bake for 90 minutes. Remove foil and top eggplant evenly with mozzarella. Bake for 15 minutes longer, uncovered, or until the cheese is bubbling and golden. Serve eggplant warm, over rice.
- The combination of savory and sweet in the eggplant with lamb calls for a dry red wine with lively acidity and spicy flavors. It just so happens that a good Lebanese red fits the bill perfectly: Musar Jeune from the Bekaa Valley, made primarily of cinsault with some syrah and cabernet sauvignon. It’s a less-expensive offering from Chateau Musar, which also makes a great, idiosyncratic, long-lived red. If this proves difficult to find, many other wines can substitute. Try a moderately priced red from Languedoc, which I hope won’t be too oaky, or a good barbera from the Piedmont region of Italy. Irouléguy in southwest France makes terrific wines that should go well, and negroamaros from Sicily should also work. If you don’t want a red, you won’t go wrong with a dry steely rosé. ERIC ASIMOV
Private Notes
Comments
Made this last night. Delicious.
As I was reading through most of the comments, for people who say the dish is way to watery, I wanted to simply point out that you are supposed to add water on a tray, where you will put the baking dish on, so that it's more like steaming, rather than pouring water into the food itself.
This is a delicious recipe, but as with many of the others from Melissa Clark, the ingredient amounts and cooking times are off. I have a professional oven with extremely accurate temperature. A total of 105 minutes is way excessive for this dish. I also found that I needed more eggplant to make three layers than two large eggplants produced.
Happy to see that Maureen Abood's excellent recipes are getting the attention they deserve. On her website, this recipe notes that the mozzarella is optional. I suggest not including it and instead serving this delicious dish with lebnah - strained plain yogurt.
I really wanted to love this, and I just didn't. I think what I'll take away from it is that adding lamb to my standard eggplant Parm would probably be delicious and arguably less work than this was.
I was excited to make this given the high rating. Unfortunately, this was a huge disappointment. Favlorless, watery, bland. One fo the worst meals I've made in a long time. I followed directions and even read helpful comments, but a huge fail nevertheless. The high rating is a mystery to me.
Superb. I’ve made this more than a half of dozen times, as directed. It’s perfect. Gets better as leftovers. Freezes beautifully, which is a treat when you want a great home cooked meal without cooking a home cooked meal (because you’ve already cooked it). It’s our favorite NYT recipe.