Arugula Stuffed Japanese Eggplant with Feta Cheese, Tomato and Bacon

 

Japanese eggplant, otherwise known as a Kurume, are the longer, slender and smaller eggplant you might occasionally see in the grocery store and they're almost always available at any Asian market. Small and flavorful, you do not need to peel them because the skins are thin and tasty.

I prepared my recipe for Rack of Lamb with Red Wine Reduction Sauce, found here, but with two modifications.  I used a mixture of store-bought, freshly made pesto sauce, with 1/4 part whole-grain Dijon mustard as the rack coating, and made the reduction sauce of 1/2 red wine and 1/2 port wine.  Otherwise, I followed that recipe as written, but using the port wine complimented the port wine I used to bathe the egg plant while they roasted in the oven.  The eggplant, along with some oven fried parsnips in a recipe found here, and I was in business.  This dish really came out great.

Ingredients
4 Japanese eggplants
16 oz fresh Arugula leaves, washed and dried
1 medium shallot, finely diced
1 large tomato, diced
2 oz Balsamic vinegar
2 oz beef stock (like, Kitchen Basics or Swanson's)
3 oz Feta cheese
2 oz bacon, cooked and crumbled (like, Oscar Meyer real bacon bits)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup port wine
salt & pepper to taste

The Recipe
Cut off the stem, leaves and very top of the eggplant, and then slice in two lengthwise. Using a melon-baller or spoon, hollow out the meat of the eggplant, leaving 1/8 inch all around the vegetable to make a little boat, reserving half of the meat. Roughly chop the meat once you remove it from the eggplant and set aside. Discard the remaining half.

Over medium high heat and using a large skillet with a tight fitting lid, saute the shallots uncovered 3-5 minutes in the olive oil until slightly browned, then add the tomato and saute another 2-3 minutes until they collapse and begin to render their juices. Add the chopped eggplant and saute another 4-5 minutes.  All told, you will have sauteed vegetables around ten to thirteen minutes.

Add the Balsamic vinegar and beef stock and bring to the boil, then add all of your Arugula. Put the lid on and allow the Arugula to collapse.  You may need to turn the leaves once or twice to ensure all of them come in contact with the hot liquid.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 

Remove everything from the stove to a large mixing bowl.  Scoot the mixture up onto the sides of the bowl and allow the juices to drain into the bottom of the bowl, which you then can sop up with a paper towel or two.  The point being that you don't want a ton of moisture for the next step, which is to add the cheese and the bacon.  Then blend well until the mixture has consistency.

Scoop even portions of the mixture back into the eggplant boats and place in a roasting dish just large enough to hold the eight portions.  Pour enough port wine in the bottom of roasting dish to cover about 1/8 inch of the bottom of each eggplant half.

Roast in 375-degree oven for 30-35 minutes until brown and bubbly.