Recipe
Get Creative With Eggplant Boats This Spring
The following excerpt and recipe for Eggplant Boats Stuffed With Bulgur, Tomatoes, and Basil is from Diane Kochilas' cookbook "The Ikaria Way: 100 Delicious Plant-Based Recipes Inspired by My Homeland, the Greek Island of Longevity." It's available for purchase on Macmillan's website.
Eggplant has a special place in the cooking of the Eastern Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. It is said that there are a thousand recipes for this popular summer vegetable. This one is inspired by older island versions of stuffed vegetables when bulgur was more common than rice. Indeed, rice, not native to Greece, was once a luxury food reserved for holiday and wedding dishes and to feed sick people. Although rice has been cultivated in Greece since the middle of the twentieth century, recipes for vegetables (and meats) stuffed with bulgur still abound in the Aegean.
Eggplant Boats Stuffed with bulgur, tomatoes, and basil
- Prep Time: 3 hrs
- Cook Time: 1 hr
- Total Time: 4 hrs
- Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup bulgur wheat
- 1 cup boiling water
- 4 medium eggplants - about 5 to 6 inches long
- 4 tbsp extra-virgin Greek olive oil
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 medium red onion - chopped finely
- 3 garlic cloves - minced
- 1 tsp dried Greek oregano
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
- 1 pinch smoked paprika
- 1 pound fresh plum tomatoes - about 8 cored seeded and chopped
- 2 tsp sherry vinegar
- 1 bunch fresh basil stems - trimmed and leaves roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp pine nuts - lightly toasted