Roasted aubergine halves stuffed with mozzarella and breadcrumbs, topped with a parsley garlic and cheese crust, baked in a sea of tomato, onion, and garlic.
As always, perfect writing food is quick (either to make or to double up another day's cooking) so it doesn't steal your writing time, low-carb so your writing time isn't sabotaged by sleepiness, and as much a treat as writing itself.
This winter's recipe is a glorious indulgence. It's comforting, rich, low carb, colourful, and easy to reheat: a sumptuous writing-day treat. It's not traditional aubergine parmigiana; it uses some cheeky / outright questionable hacks, but it is utterly bloody lovely.
It's also a lot quicker than regular aubergine parmigiana. Still not objectively quick, it's not a five-minuter, but I've managed to refine the original recipe down to 1 hour of active time, and it makes 8 portions, so that's a very generous reward on the time. After you've made it the first time, you also have parsley-garlic paste stashed in the freezer for the next two times you make it, so that speeds things up too.
If you're having a full writing day, you can make it earlier in the day as a brain-break, and then hold off the final 10-20 minutes in the oven. Alternately, make it on a non-writing day and pad it out with crusty bread or fried / boiled and herby potatoes, so the precious aubergine boats don't all get inhaled.
If you're after something healthier, quicker to make, vegan, or gluten-free, try last winter's recipe. If you've got 1h40 to be around (1 hour of which is active time) and you're looking to treat your writer self, then you may want...
Stuffed Aubergine Parmigiana
Note: There are also pictures at the bottom of the post, to show some of the techniques / cooking in progress.
Serving and Times
Cooking: 1h40, of which 1h active
Serves: 6–8 or 8 writing-time meals
Ingredients
Main
- 1 onion, diced
- 60ml extra-virgin olive oil (¼ cup), plus extra for drizzling
- 4 medium aubergines
- 2 tsp pouring salt
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 x 400g tins whole peeled tomatoes
- 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
- 15g chopped parsley to serve, plus crusty bread / potatoes when you have it as a non-writing time meal (so your lovely aubergine halves don't all get snaffled up)
Parsley-Garlic Paste
- 70g parsley, leaves and stalks roughly chopped
- 5 garlic cloves
- Zest and juice of ½ lemon
- 125ml extra-virgin olive oil (½ cup)
- ¼ tsp pouring salt (½ tsp flakes)
Parsley-Garlic Crumbs
- 80g parsley-garlic paste (¼ cup)
- 100g breadcrumbs
- 50g butter
- 1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Stuffing
- 50g breadcrumbs
- 340g of your 500g mozzarella (the rest is for sprinkling)
- 15g parsley, roughly chopped
Equipment
- Large shallow baking dish that can fit 8 aubergine halves next to each other (mine is 24cm x 34cm and 6.5cm deep)
- Full-sized oven tray
- Baking paper
- Large mixing bowl
- Optional, makes it quicker: a food chopper; a 400ml jar for shaking garlic; a mezzaluna for speed-chopping parsley.
Method
50 Mins Active Time
- Find a baking dish large enough to take 8 aubergine halves (mine is 24cm x 34cm and 6.5cm deep).
- Dice 1 onion med-fine and put in the dish with 60ml olive oil. Put in the cold oven, then turn oven onto 180° C fan. Set onion timer for 15 mins.
- Line an oven tray with baking paper. Halve the 4 aubergines lengthwise and score them deeply, criss-cross diagonally, not piercing the skin. Sprinkle about ¼ tsp salt on each half, pressing the aubergine edges down so the salt can fall into the cracks. Lay the aubergines face-down on the baking paper.
- Shake the 9 garlic cloves (4 if you have your parsley-garlic paste already) in a jar, to remove/loosen their skins.*
- Blitz the peeled garlic in a ninja/chopper. If you're making parsley-garlic paste, set aside just under half the garlic to join the onions later.
- Make the parsley-garlic paste: Add to the 5 cloves garlic in the ninja/blender: 70g parsley, zest and juice of ½ lemon, 125ml oil, ¼ tsp salt. Blitz till smooth. Divide into 3 x 80g: one to use now; two in small jars for the freezer, for future.
- When the onions have had 15 mins and the oven’s hot, take the onions out and put the halved aubergines in. Set a 30-min aubergine timer.
- To the onion dish, add the remaining 4 cloves minced garlic, 2 tins tomatoes, ½ tin water (200ml), 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar. Crush the tomatoes with a masher. Pop the dish back in the oven.
- Fry the breadcrumbs: Melt 50g butter in a frying pan. Add 1 Tbsp olive oil, 80g parsley-garlic paste, and 100g breadcrumbs. Fry till golden, stirring regularly. Between stirs, you can mix the stuffing.
- Mix the stuffing: Roughly chop the remaining 30g parsley. In a large bowl, mix half that parsley, 340g mozzarella, and 50g breadcrumbs. (Set the extra mozzarella and parsley aside for later.)
- When the aubergines have had 30 mins, take them out the oven. Turn the aubergines face-up to cool and set a 15-min timer.
15 Mins Rest
- Finish anything not done, clean kitchen, chill, etc.
10 Mins Active Time
- Take the tomato dish out the oven.
- With a spoon, scrape the aubergine flesh from the skins into the stuffing mix bowl, keeping the skins whole. Mix well.
- Lay the aubergine skins on the tomato mix. Fill with stuffing mix. Drizzle olive oil over them.
- Put in the oven for 15 mins.
25 (15 + 10) mins rest (or longer if you wish)
- After 15 mins (this can be 20 if you wish), take the dish out and top each aubergine half with the parsley-garlic breadcrumbs and the extra mozzarella for sprinkling.
- If you want to pause dinner, you can keep it out the oven for longer now.
- If / when you’re ready to eat, put it back in the oven for 10 mins if it’s still piping hot (or 15–20 if you paused it and it needs to regain its heat).
- Sprinkle the remaining parsley over it before serving. (It's fine to parsley the ones for the freezer too.)
Freezing
Refrigerate the tray overnight, to help everything firm up. The next day, use a flat spatula to scoop each aubergine boat, along with the tomato mix under it, onto tinfoil. Wrap the portions in foil and label with masking tape & a sharpie.
Recipe credits: Alice Zaslavsky in the Guardian. I've adapted the technique to streamline the prep, cooked the tomatoes and onion for longer, and adjusted the quantities to suit the amount things are sold in, in the UK.
* Shaking garlic in a jar to peel it: This is not a spoof hack; it really works. A 400ml jar works best, not a huge one. For older garlic, the peels will usually fall off after vigorous shaking. For very fresh garlic, the peels often don't come off, but the bash-about in the jar makes the fresh cloves easier to peel: cut off the blunt end without severing the peel on the other side, then use that to pull the rest of the peel off.
The cooking, in pictures
The stuffing mix in its bowl (before the aubergines are added) with the two extra jars parsley-garlic paste.
Two extra jars of paste labelled for the freezer.
Holding the scored aubergine open to sprinkle with salt.
Scooping the aubergine flesh out the skins.
Empty aubergine skins laid out on the tomato sauce.
Aubergine halves filled to be baked before their topping is added.
Aubergine halves baked, before the parsley is sprinkled on.
Aubergine parmigiana for my writing day.
Four portions for the freezer, for future writing-time joy.
P.S. If you find writing time hard to protect, then the brand-new Time To Write course will help a lot with that, from practical strategies like this to mindset-shifts that make it easier and more joyous. And plenty of literal writing time, built into the course! Read more here.
