Eggplant Rolls stuffed with Quinoa and ‘Mince’

I finally found a good substitute for mince meat. I have tried Quorn, which was very close, but has egg whites so its not vegan. TVP Mince (Lamyong) is vegan and has a very meaty texture. It doesn’t taste like meat of course, but it takes on the taste of whatever you put with it. So I think you could add stock to give it a more meaty taste. I just added soy sauce tonight to give it a richer taste. I have read that TVP Mince is not healthy, but for every now it again its ok. Better then the saturated fats in meat anyway.

We bought a big eggplant and I was thinking of what I could do with it. I didn’t have enough potato’s for moussaka, so I thought I would try and create something new. It turned out well. The stuffing was nice and moist and eggplant was nice and soft. I read a tip in my Chef Chloe book about how to prepare eggplant by sweating. It actually really works and my eggplant was not bitter at all. 

Eggplant Rolls stuffed with Quinoa and ‘Mince’ (vegan, gluten free, nut free)

Ingredients:

1 red onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 cups quinoa, cooked

1 cup TVP Mince (I used Lamyong TVP Mince)

1 large italian eggplant, sliced in large thin pieces

200g tomato pasta sauce

3 tablespoons tamari or gluten free soy sauce

2 tablespoons fresh basil

olive oil for frying

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees

2. Sweat the eggplants for 20mins. Just need to put eggplant on a tray and cover in plenty of salt. After wipe off the salt and water (that will come out of it).

3. Shallow fry the eggplant, till soft then place on a plate/tray with paper towel, to soak up the oil and let leave it to cool.

4. Cook quinoa according to packet and soak TVP Mince in small amount of water, so its just wet.

5. Heat olive oil in a pot then add onion and garlic and cook for 5mins on medium heat. 

6. Take pot off the heat, add TVP Mince, quinoa, 1/4 cup of passata sauce (or more if mixture is too dry), soy sauce, basil, salt & pepper to taste.

7. Take a 8×10 baking dish and spoon few tablespoons of sauce to cover the bottom.

8. Now you can start rolling the eggplant if they are cool enough. Just place eggplant slice on palm of hand and spoon mixture into the centre and roll each side in and then place into baking dish. 

9. Once you have made all the eggplant rolls cover the top with passata sauce and sprinkle the top with corn crumbs.

10. Cook in the oven for 25mins, till hot all the way through and corn crumbs are a little golden.