The Toronto Hare Krishna Temple has started a new online cooking series called “Cooking for Krishna” wherein delectable dishes from famous Hare Krishna cookbooks will be lovingly prepared and shown in a step-by-step fashion. This series is presented by one of our very nice devotees of our Toronto Hare Krishna community, Lyudmila Mataji. We hope you enjoy! Please leave your comments below!
Cooking for Krishna – Stuffed & Baked Eggplant
Prepared By: Lyudmila Tamahina
Preparation and Cooking Time: 35 – 45 minutes
Yield: 8 stuffed eggplant halves
Introduction
Today’s recipe is from the famous Hare Krishna Cookbook, “Cooking with Kurma” by Kurma Dasa and can be found on page 71. You can pick up your copy of this amazing book at the temple!
Step One – Ingredients:
- 4 medium- sized eggplants, about 750 g
- ¼ cup (60 ml) olive oil
- ½ teaspoon (2ml) yellow asafetida powder
- 2 cups (500 ml) fresh tomato puree
- ½ cups (125 ml) tomato paste
- ¼ cup (60 ml) packed fresh basil leaves, about ¼ large bunch basil, chopped
- 2 teaspoons (10 ml) salt
- 1 tablespoon (20 ml) sugar
- ½ teaspoon (2ml) freshly-ground black pepper
- ¾ cup (185 ml) parmesan cheese
- 1 ½-2 cups (375-500 ml) breadcrumbs
- 2 tablespoons (400 ml) reserved parmesan cheese
- Cut the eggplants in half, lengthwise.
- Place them in a large saucepan of lightly salted boiling water, and boil them for 5-7 minutes or until they are tender enough for their flesh to be spooned out.
- Remove and drain the eggplant halves.
- With a spoon, scoop out the flesh from the eggplants, being careful to allow a little flesh around the narrow neck of the eggplant to remain intact. This will ensure that the eggplant shell does not collapse and lose its shape.
- Set the shell of the eggplant aside.
- Chop the eggplant flesh, squeeze out liquid
Step Four:
- Place the olive oil in a large frying pan over high heat. When hot sprinkle the yellow asafetida powder, then drop in the chopped eggplant flesh. Fry stirring for 6-8 min.
- Pour in tomato puree, stir in the tomato paste, basil, salt, sugar, black pepper. Reduce the heat slightly and stirring often, cook the mixture for another 5 or 6 minutes or until fairly thick and reduced.
- Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cheese and ½ cups (635 ml) of the breadcrumbs.
- The mixture should now be thick . Add a little extra breadcrumbs if required.
- Pre-heat the oven to 200 ℃/390 °F. Spoon the mixtures into the eggplant shells, packing and piling it up until all the filling is used. Sprinkle the reserved cheese on top, place the eggplants on an oiled baking sheet or in a casserole dish and bake in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.
- Serve Krsna first!
- Serve hot or warm.
- Bon Appétit
