This recipe will appeal to all vegetarians or people who are looking for a beautiful, unusual side dish for any meat dishes. Rich filling, the most tender stewed vegetables, minimum fat, maximum pleasure and that’s all – Eggplant rolls!
Ingredients for making eggplant rolls:
Vegetables:
- Tomatoes – 500 grams
- Carrots – 3 pieces
- Bulgarian pepper – 2 pieces
- Onion – 1 piece
- Parsley – 1 bunch (small)
Spices:
- Seasoning for vegetables – to taste
- Dried and ground motherwort – to taste
- Oregano – to taste
- Ground black pepper – to taste
- Dried ground basil – to taste
Other products:
- Eggplant – 3 pieces
- Salt – to taste
- Vegetable oil – 4 tablespoons
- Clean water – 1 liter
- Rice – 1 cup
Inventory:
- Colander with a fine mesh
- Deep pot
- Measuring glass for water
- Plate
- Deep bowl – 2 pieces
- Polyethylene food film
- Refrigerator
- Than
- Cutting board
- Paper kitchen towels
- A small bowl
- Deep plate – 2 pieces
- Blender
- Tablespoon
- Fork
- Dish-cloth
- Baker’s brush
- Frying pan
- Kitchen spatula
- Grill pan
- Oven
- Heat-resistant glass baking dish (diameter 22 by 31 centimeters)
- Kitchen gloves
- Plate
Preparation of eggplant rolls:
Step 1: prepare rice.
To begin with, we spread the rice grains on the kitchen table and sort them from the garbage. Then we throw the rice into a colander with a fine mesh and wash it under cold running water from dust and other impurities. We leave it in this container 5-7 minutes, to drain the remaining liquid and then pour into a deep pan.
Step 2: cook rice.
Pour 1 liter of clean water over the rice grains and put the pan on the stove, turned on at a high level. After the liquid boils, reduce the stove temperature to medium and cook the rice, stirring occasionally with a tablespoon, until fully cooked. This process will take approx 15 to 30 minutes depending on the variety and quality of rice. When the rice grains are cooked, become soft and tender, using a kitchen towel, remove the pan from the stove and pour its contents into a colander.
Rinse the rice again under cold water, wait until the remaining liquid drains from it, and transfer it to a deep bowl. We tighten it with polyethylene food film and send it to the refrigerator for 25-30 minutes or until the moment of questioning, during which time the boiled rice will swell a little and become more viscous.
Step 3: prepare the vegetables.
At the same time as cooking rice, you can prepare vegetables, peel carrots and onions with a knife, remove the stalks from eggplants and peppers and gut the latter from the seeds. After that, wash the vegetables under cold running water together with the tomatoes and a bunch of parsley from any kind of contamination. Then we dry them with paper kitchen towels from excess moisture, put them one by one on a cutting board and grind them.
Cut the onion, bell pepper, and carrot into cubes of up to 7 millimeters and transfer these slices to one deep bowl.
We shake the parsley over a sink from water, finely chop it and put it in a small bowl.
From the tomatoes, cut off the places where the stalks were attached, separate 2-3 pieces from the total mass, chop them into small cubes of about 7 millimeters and transfer the slices to a deep plate.
Cut the rest of the tomatoes into 3-4 parts, send them to a clean blender bowl and grind them at high speed to a uniform liquid consistency. After pouring the mass into a deep bowl, add salt to taste, dried basil and oregano to the same container, 2 pinches of each spice will be enough. Mix with a tablespoon and set the container aside for a while, this mixture is needed for pouring.
Cut the eggplants lengthwise into layers up to 5-7 millimeters thick, lay them on a kitchen towel and salt each layer to taste. We leave the eggplants in this form on 15-20 minutes.
Step 4: stew the vegetables.
While the eggplant layers are soaked with salt, turn on the stove to medium level and put a pan with 2-3 tablespoons of vegetable oil on it. When the fat is heated, throw chopped onions and carrots into it and stew, stirring with a kitchen spatula for 4-5 minutes until soft. Then add diced tomatoes, bell pepper, parsley, and vegetable seasoning to the pan. We continue to stew all the vegetables for a while 7-8 minutes until soft and complete evaporation of vegetable juice. After that, remove the pan from the stove and allow the vegetable mixture to cool down a little.
Step 5: prepare the filling.
When the vegetable mixture cools down a little, take out a bowl with boiled rice from the refrigerator, remove the plastic film, add stewed vegetables to the rice and mix everything with a tablespoon until smooth. We taste the filling, if necessary, add more spices and salt and mix again.
Step 6: fry the eggplants.
Now let’s start frying eggplants, it is best to use a grill pan for this purpose in order not to waste a lot of fat. So, with the help of an ordinary baker’s brush, we apply a thin layer of vegetable oil to the grill pan and put the container on the stove, which is turned on at the middle level. When it heats up, put the first batch of eggplant layers in the pan.
Fry on both sides until medium plasticity and softness throughout 2-3 minutes. Then, with the help of a kitchen spatula, transfer the fried eggplants to a deep plate and let them cool down a little. WARNING: at this stage of cooking, the layers of the vegetable should be semi-raw! Fry and cool other eggplants in the same way. We also heat the oven until 190 degrees Celsius.
Step 7: form rolls.
When the eggplants have cooled, put 1 layer on a cutting board and place a tablespoon of the filling on one of its ends. Roll the layer into a tight roll and transfer it to a heat-resistant glass baking dish.
We also form other eggplant rolls.
Step 8: bake eggplant rolls.
Now pour the eggplant rolls with a mixture of tomatoes and spices. We check the temperature of the oven, and if it has warmed up, we install a form with still raw food in the oven. Bake the rolls for a while 20-25 minutes until the eggplants are soft. After the required time, check the density of the rolls with a fork, if the teeth come in under pressure, then bring the dish to full readiness for another 5-7 minutes.
If the fork enters the eggplant pulp freely, then with the help of kitchen tongs, remove the form from the oven. We spread the rolls in portions on plates, pour over the tomato sauce that has accumulated at the bottom of the form and serve the fragrant dish to the table.
Step 9: serve eggplant rolls.
Eggplant rolls are served hot, warm or chilled, it all depends on your taste. If desired, each portion of this delicious dish can be topped with homemade mayonnaise, cream, sour cream or sprinkled with fresh chopped dill, parsley, and cilantro. Enjoy!
Bon appetit!
Advice:
– The choice of spices in this recipe is not essential, you can put any spices in the filling and sauce that are suitable for cooking vegetable dishes, for example, bay leaves, thyme, paprika, white allspice, rosemary.
– If you wish, you can fry the eggplants in the usual way in a small amount of any vegetable fat until they are ready and elastic.
– If desired, you can add a few tablespoons of mayonnaise or sour cream to the tomato mixture, these ingredients will add a special pleasant aftertaste to the finished dish.
– If desired, stewed, boiled or baked meat of any kind can be added to the filling. You can also add such canned vegetables as peas, corn, chili pepper or raw vegetables, for example, a couple of cloves of garlic, as well as mushrooms.
