I started making my own ground white meat chicken and I still long for my Bolognese on at least a weekly basis, so I had to find something besides zucchini ribbons to compliment the sauce. Enter.... the eggplant :-) Granted, it's not quite as colorful as the zucchini, but it sure packs a plateful of flavor!
The original recipe using venison/beef is still available at Venison Bolognese & Eggplant
Ingredients:
- ~1.5 lbs ground white meat chicken
- 1 28 oz can plum shaped tomatoes in puree
- olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 yellow onion, cut up
- 1/2 tsp salt
- fresh ground black pepper to taste (I like about 6 twists on the grinder)
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- dash of oregano
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 1 lge eggplant
Preparation:
Start by frying up the chop meat in a large skillet with a bit of olive
oil until fully cooked and a nice shade of brown. Set aside.
Add a bit of olive oil to your sauce pot and sautee the chopped garlic. As the garlic JUST gets brown add in the cut up onion and sautee til slightly translucent and shiny.
Place canned tomatoes in a bowl and cut into quarters or bite-size pieces... Not too small as they will cook down some in the pot.
Add tomatoes and puree to sauce pot and stir. Add in salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano and dried parsley. Bring to a boil and then simmer on low for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Finally stir in the fried chop meat. The mixture will seem very meaty and not at all liquid.... that's intentional as our base for the sauce is very different from pasta.
Peel the eggplant and cut into bite-sized cubes
Heat some olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat and add the eggplant. I like to use the large pot for this purpose as it makes it easy to do the frequent toss as the eggplant cooks without getting splatter or the occasional cube on the nice shiny stove *smirks*
Once the eggplant is tender, plate as you would pasta and add the meaty sauce on top, or mix it all into one pot of delicious goodness. :-) Add some grated parmesan or peccorino-romano if you like :-)
Blessed be... and happy cooking!