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Vegetables - Aunt Mary's Eggplant Balls These hearty, delicious eggplant morsels can be used as a replacement for meatballs, or they can be fried into patties and eaten like burgers.

#burgers #mixture #eggplant balls #replacement #meatballs

Written recipe: http://orsararecipes.net/eggplant-meatballs-recipe

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Eggplant Meatballs

Top: before cooking. Bottom: Oven baked

here’s the recipe I followed: http://blog.giallozafferano.it/ricettefacililucia/polpette-di-melanzane-al-forno-ricetta-secondo-vegetariano/

These were delicious!

What is this, a center for plants?

On Tuesday May 27th, it was back to real life, and I spent my morning giving my eager young minds a little quiz about functionalist psychology. When I began my long walk home, I gave Rob a call to see if he would mind cubing an eggplant and sauteing it in garlic. Because when I got home, I was making eggplant balls.

These Spicy Eggplant Balls with Minty Yogurt by The Awesome Green involve essentially the same logic as a meatball, except instead of raw meat, you use cooked eggplant. Thanks to the head start Rob gave me, I was able to basically walk in the door and throw the eggplant into the food processor, along with some onion, bread crumbs, egg, and seasoning. I’ll note that I couldn’t even fit all of the eggplant in the food processor, so I had some little cooked cubes leftover for other uses.

Once the mixture was blended, it slightly resembled wet cat food. Which probably isn’t the greatest incentive for getting you to try this recipe yourself, but you would have figured it out sooner or later.

Anyway, once I got my hands on it, the texture really was suspiciously like that of a meatball, and it was very easy to form into little balls. This made me very hopeful - I was a little worried it would be a goopy mess.

While the eggplant balls were browning in the oven, I got to work on the yogurt sauce that would go with them. This was an unusually busy day for my food processor (I really don’t love getting it out all that often), but I usually trust that if a recipe says a sauce needs a food processor, homogeneity is important. So, into the Cuisinart went the yogurt, mint leaves, garlic, lime juice, and black pepper (sorry, no Campari).

I must admit, I kind of love it when recipes call for fresh mint, because we have our own growing on the back patio! This picture doesn’t do our lush little plant justice, and by now, it’s vining all over the place and is really flourishing. What a great herb to have on hand for summer.

Anyway, after finishing the sauce, I plucked a few extra leaves of mint and went fishing for my fresh pomegranate seeds, which the recipe recommended for topping. Unfortunately, my seeds were getting a little old and stinky, so I didn’t feel like I could use them - but, I still needed something sweet. So I thought raisins would be a reasonable substitute.

So when the eggplant balls were done (and looking so beautiful, if I do say so myself), I warmed some tortillas and stuffed 2-3 of the balls in each. Then, I drizzled with some of the yogurt sauce, sprinkled some raisins, and Rob added the finishing touch of a little extra mint leaf.

They were so good! The eggplant balls themselves had that delightfully unique eggplant flavor, supplemented by the garlicky, oniony seasoning, and the texture was very satisfying. The sauce was a little too garlicky for my taste, but it had lots of creaminess, freshness, and tang. The raisins were the perfect pop of sweetness, and the mint leaf brought vegetal texture and brightness. A very balanced little lunch.

This was a pretty new recipe for me, and I really had no clue what to expect in terms of texture and flavor, but I would definitely make these again. Plus, my version of this recipe yielded about 24 little balls, which would be great for a party - I think they’d be a real crowd-pleaser for vegetarians and omnivores alike. If you’re looking for a healthy and unique yet filling and flavorful lunch, I’d highly recommend this recipe.

Caroline