Spiced Lamb Aubergine

This is the perfect recipe for lunch at home if you’re entertaining – it’s light, bright and delicious!

INGREDIENTS

• Good few glugs of olive oil
• 1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled, squashed and grated / chopped
• 4 aubergines
• 2 tsp freshly ground cumin seeds (use ground if you don’t have fresh)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 2 tsp paprika
• large pinch of red chilli flakes (or use fresh red chilli for extra heat)
• 500g/1lb 2oz lamb mince
• 3 or 4 tbsp tomato purée plus a little water
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

METHOD

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F.

2. Cut each aubergine lengthways through the stalk (don’t remove the stalk). Then with a sharp knife score the aubergine in a criss cross pattern but be careful not to cut all the way through. Next place the aubergines on a baking tray (we use bake-o-glide to stop them sticking). Season with salt and pepper and then bake in the oven for around 30 minutes or until the flesh of the aubergine is nice and soft.

3. While the aubergines are baking, add a few glugs of olive oil to a large sauté pan and fry off the onion for about 5 minutes over a gentle heat – you don’t want it too brown, just nicely softened. Then add the garlic and spices and stir well – let this combine for around 3-4 minutes – again over a gentle heat – and then add the lamb mince. Stir well and let the meat brown slightly. Once cooked through add the tomato purée and a little water to loosen it up – if you want to add more tomato you can – we found it cooks a bit better if it’s not too wet a sauce.

4. Once the aubergines have cooked through and you’ve removed them from the oven, scoop out the flesh – this will be easy (hopefully) and then add this to the lamb mixture. Season well with salt and pepper and taste to check before adding to the aubergine skins. At this point you’re going to put them back in the oven for 15 minutes (same temp as before) but you can add cheese, herbs, more chilli – anything goes! We didn’t, we just baked them with the meat inside and then served them with steamed white rice and a simple fattoush salad and it was really good.