Chilli Weather

Sorry it's been a bit quiet here on the cooking front recently, but it is exam time at the moment. It's hard to feel inspired to cook something interesting when you are weighed down by the thought of finals!  I have a bit of a gap before my last exam (chemistry '~' ) though, so I thought I would cook something that actually required a bit of planning, rather than some ridiculous stir-fry or a boring pasta sauce. Having said that, my food store is a bit limited since I am going home at the weekend(!!!!!) so I have to work with what I've got.

Just so you know, I am planning to do some much more exciting cooking once I get home for Christmas, in our lovely big kitchen with the lovely big cooker, so stay tuned for that!

This is somewhere between chili con carne and moussaka - sounds strange but tastes good!

Spiced Aubergine (Eggplant) and Beef Bake
serves 4
1 Aubergine
1 onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pack lean beef mince
1/2 tsp chili flakes
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tin chopped tomatoes
grated cheese
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F

start by cutting the aubergine into thin slices - no thicker than 0.5cm. I happened to be using one of those long japanese aubergines, but any kind will do.

Lay them in a colander or sieve like this, then sprinkle them with a bit of salt. This will draw out some of the water and get rid of any bitterness. Leave them like this for half an hour, or while you prepare the rest of the dish.

Chop up an onion,

and saute it with the garlic until it starts to go translucent

Then, add the beef and cook until it is nice and brown before adding the chili, cumin and tomatoes, and seasoning with salt and pepper.

it will look a bit like this! Bring it to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, then turn off the heat.

Next, lay half of the aubergine slices in the bottom of a baking dish

and cover with half of the meat sauce, using a slotted spoon so as not to transfer too much liquid from the pan - the aubergines still have a lot of water in them, and we don't want too much in the finished dish.

Repeat the layers, then top with some grated cheese. If you have more cheese than I did, you should also put some in between the first layer of meat and the second layer of aubergines, that would be yummy.

Cover the dish with foil and put it in the oven for 45 minutes. Take the foil off for the last ten minutes, so the cheese gets all tasty.

and that's that! Simples.

Serve it with rice, or if you are really clever, you could make it into some freaky lasagna by adding extra layers of (very) al dente rice or pasta!