Egyptian-Style Stuffed Eggplants

Ingredients

• 8 slender long eggplants
• 400 g cooked rice
• 200 g ground lamb
• 1 tsp crushed black cumin
• 1 pinch crushed ajwain (Ajowan)
• Salt
• Pepper
• 4 tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 1 Garlic clove
• 1 bunch parsley
• 1 lemon
• 3 tbsp oil
• 100 ml Vegetable broth

Instructions

1. 1.

   Thinly peel eggplants into strips with a paring knife. Cut a narrow wedge from one side along the length and hollow out the eggplants using a sharp‑tipped spoon.

2. 2.

   Chop the flesh finely. Peel and dice the onion and garlic very small, then sauté them with the eggplant flesh in 2 tbsp oil. Remove from pan, add remaining oil and heat. Crumble the ground lamb, season with ajwain and black cumin, add rice and onion mixture, cook for 2‑3 minutes, set aside.

3. 3.

   Wash parsley, shake dry, roughly chop. Boil tomatoes, peel and halve them, scrape out seeds and dice flesh. Halve lemon and squeeze juice. Combine all with meat mixture, mix well, season with salt and pepper. Fill the hollowed eggplants, arrange side by side in a baking dish, pour broth over.

4. 4.

   Cover with foil and bake at 180 °C for about 20‑30 minutes. Serve on plates garnished with parsley.