Eggplant Rollatini
Delicious eggplant rollups with cheese and mushrooms inside, and baked in a tomato sauce. The eggplant comes out fully cooked and yummy. This is a nice baked cheese dish that's actually pretty healthy.
Cooking Temperature 200 C (400 F)
Ingredients
- 2 cans Tomatoes large
- 1 teaspoon Basil dried
- 1 teaspoon Oregano dried
- 4 Eggplants medium
- Cooking spray
- 1 Zucchini small, grated
- 1 pound Mushrooms chopped, finely
- 1 Bell Pepper minced
- 4 stalks Celery minced
- 5 oz Spinach frozen (140g)
- 2 cloves Garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon Onion Powder
- 1 teaspoon Chile Flakes
- ½ cup Broth
- 1 Egg White
- ½ cup Dry-Curd Cottage Cheese
- 4 tablespoons Parmesan Cheese
Instructions
- Part 1: Sauce
- Whiz the canned tomatoes through a blender. Put into a pot, season with the basil and oregano, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and let cook until thickened. Aim to end up with around 500 ml (4 cups) of the sauce. Season to taste with salt or pepper.
- Part 2: The eggplant
- Heat oven to 200 C (400 F).
- Wash the eggplants, trim off the green leafy end. Cut into slices around half a centimetre (¼ inch) thick. Spray all slices, both sides, with cooking spray. Spread out on cooking sheets and bake for about 10 minutes; then remove from oven, flip, and return to oven for another 10 minutes. If they're not browned after that, continue baking them for another 5 to 10 minutes. A few very thin areas make burn and turn brittle; those you can just crumble off and discard. A few thicker pieces may want to be returned to the oven for a few more minutes on their own until they are cooked through.
- Set aside to cool.
- Part 3: The filling
- Mix together all the ingredients from the zucchini down to the broth together in a pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer until all the veggie are fully softened and cooked. If it starts to dry, add some water. Remove from heat, let cool a bit, then drain any excess liquid off (tip: freeze any excess liquid for soup.) When cool, mix in the egg white and the cheeses.
- Part 4: Assembly and Baking
- Take a 20 cm x 20 cm (8 x 8 inch / 6 cup / 1.5 litre) baking dish. Cover the bottom of it with some of the sauce.
- Assemble your first rollatini as follows: take a strip of the cooked eggplant, and lay it on a working board or plate. Put about a teaspoon of filling on one end of it, then roll it up. Place it seam side down into the baking dish. Repeat until all ingredients are used up, tucking the rollatini into the pan. You'll need to make a second layer: before you do, cover the first layer with some tomato sauce. When finished, spread all the remaining tomato sauce on the top so that no eggplant is exposed to the heat.
- Bake for about 30 minutes at 200 C / 400 F until piping hot and bubbling. Serve hot.
Notes
This is a lot of work -- though well, well worth it. We recommend making parts 1 and 2 a day or two ahead, or, making this on a weekend afternoon, doubling or tripling the recipe to make lots to freeze for quick but healthy meals later.
You could cheat and use a bottled tomato pasta sauce
Instead of 5 oz (140 g) of frozen spinach, you can use 450 g (1 pound / 12 cups) of fresh, well-washed or 1 cup of canned spinach, drained.
We used a salt substitute instead of salt.
If you don't have broth, you can just use water.
Instead of the 1 egg white, we used 2 tablespoons of egg white from a pasteurized carton.
½ cup of Dry Curd Cottage Cheese is 100 g (3.5 oz.)
We didn't bother peeling the eggplant, though you could if you wanted to before slicing.
We just tossed into the casserole any small, cooked egg plant pieces that couldn't be rolled up and any leftover filling.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!