Ingredients
Scale
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 pound ground pork
- A generous handful fresh chopped basil – the more the better
- 3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 4 eggs
- 4 cups fresh bread crumbs from Italian bread
- 18 little black eggplants, no bigger than the palm of your hand
- Chopped eggplant pulp from 18 baby eggplants and the juice
- squeezed from 36 eggplant halves
- 1 tablespoon salt
- oil for frying
Instructions
- Bring a medium to large pot of water to a boil
- Wash eggplant, cut off stems and cut length wise in half
- Slice all the way around into the eggplants roughly 1/4 inch from the skin and 1/4 inch deep
- Place into boiling water and remove when pulp is tender, about 4 minutes
- Once cool enough to work with, using two fingers or a spoon, dig out the pulp of the eggplants, chop it up and set aside in a bowl
- In a large bowl mix all ingredients including the chopped eggplant pulp together but leave the eggplant halves aside.
- Squeeze the juice out of the eggplant halves into the mixture.
- Fill eggplant shells with meat mixture and fry on medium heat in a pan with 1/4 to 1/2 inch oil, meat side down first, until cooked through. Flip and fry eggplant side for a few minutes. Place on paper towel briefly to soak up any excess oil and serve.
Notes
- Be sure to use freshly ground bread not dry bread crumbs.
- If you don’t have baby eggplants, you can substitute two large eggplants and make eggplant bracciole. Wash the eggplants, cut off the stems and place in boiling water until tender. Then chop them up and add to the rest of the mixture.
