Stuffed Aubergines with Feta and Pomegranate

By Emma Hawkins | March 25, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

Inspiration for my recipes comes from loads of different places – books, websites, social media, tv shows, and everything in between. The other day I was watching the new TV series with Nigel Slater about his trip around the middle east – a very good watch if you come across it by the way. I’ve never done much middle eastern cooking but I’ve always wanted to as I love those kind of flavours, so when I saw his stuffed aubergine dish on the show I knew I wanted to do a little variation of my own.

This is the first time I’ve worked with roasted garlic and I’m definitely going to use more of it in the future. By roasting the cloves the pungent garlic flavour is muted and instead a caramelised, nutty flavour is created, which in this case goes really well with the earthy aubergine. I’ve also used coriander here as it adds some bright colour and a bitter herbal element which works really well in the dish. However, I’m not a big fan of coriander, and I’ll admit that I picked the leaves out of my portion when it came to eating it, so if you’re like me and the mere thought of coriander makes you recoil don’t worry, it’s not essential to the recipe.

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 20 minutes, plus cooking time

Ingredients

2 Aubergines
4 Garlic cloves, unpeeled
4 tbsp Olive oil
1/2 Pomegranate
100g Feta
35g Runny honey
4 tbsp Corriander (optional)
Salt and Pepper to season

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C.
Cut each aubergine in half and then score the flesh into a criss-cross pattern, being careful not to pierce the skin.
Put the aubergines, skin side up, and the garlic cloves into a roasting tin. Drizzle over the oil and sprinkle with the salt. Rub this into the flesh and then bake for 30 minutes, or utill soft.
Take a spoon and scoop out the flesh from the aubergines, being careful not to tear the skin.
Take the skin off the garlic. Then put this roasted garlic into a bowl with the aubergine and crush it all into a pulp. Then fold in 2/3 of the pomegranate seeds, the honey and 1/2 of the feta. Season to taste with more salt and pepper.
Spoon this mixture back into the aubergine skins. Crumble over the rest of the feta and then garnish with the rest of the pomegranate seeds and coriander leaves. Serve!