Maureen Abood’s Eggplant With Lamb, Tomato and Pine Nuts

Made this last night. Delicious.

As I was reading through most of the comments, for people who say the dish is way to watery, I wanted to simply point out that you are supposed to add water on a tray, where you will put the baking dish on, so that it's more like steaming, rather than pouring water into the food itself.

This is a delicious recipe, but as with many of the others from Melissa Clark, the ingredient amounts and cooking times are off. I have a professional oven with extremely accurate temperature. A total of 105 minutes is way excessive for this dish. I also found that I needed more eggplant to make three layers than two large eggplants produced.

Happy to see that Maureen Abood's excellent recipes are getting the attention they deserve. On her website, this recipe notes that the mozzarella is optional. I suggest not including it and instead serving this delicious dish with lebnah - strained plain yogurt.

Great, but I have lots of suggestions.
Standard large eggplants yielded enough for only two layers. Still fine.
Do not need to add extra water.
Do not need such a long cooking time.
Added extra garlic, extra S and P, and a bit more cinnamon.
Pine nuts were key.

Sophia I don't think so - I was wondering that myself at first after reading all the comments but just made it and a full cup of liquid does get absorbed if you cook it for the full suggested time. It does say "pour around the perimeter of the dish", which could I suppose mean IN or OUT of the baking dish...but works great inside - and, usually if you need to transfer dish to a tray the directions indicate that step.

It's a keeper. I read the comments before making it and added extra garlic, 1 tsp of coriander and cumin each and just half a cup of water. Didn't add butter to the pine (200g). It was delicious. Had lots of liquid in the dish but simply removed some before adding the cheese. I strongly recommend the nuts and the cheese, don't think it'll taste so good without.

Made ahead of time (half recipe) incorporating other suggestions:
add ras el hanout (same amt as cinnamon) to lamb
less water by half
bake for 1 hr, then put in fridge
take out, top with mozzarella and bake 30 min at 350
wonderful!

I made a few changes in the recipe. The main one was using feta instead of mozzarella. It was very good and I will cook it again.

I gave this recipe a different twist: I cut the eggplants in thin length-wise slices, then I laid some filling on top of the short side of each slice and rolled the slices as I would crepes or manicotti. Continued with the recipe as given, but added all-spice instead of cinnamon, only 1/2 cup water and used Gruyère cheese instead of mozzarella. A huge success for my family and friends!

The flavor of this dish is wonderful. I cook just for myself, so halved this recipe, and found the quantities wrong. FAR TOO MUCH water, and not enough eggplant to make the layers. Next time I will use more eggplant and very little water, just a dribble or two for moisture. or I will just dilute the tomato sauce a bit.

This was absolutely delectable. Please don't add any water to the casserole. If you've browned the eggplant slices to a "deep mahogany brown" as the recipe states, the ground lamb is cooked, & you are adding 3 1/2 cups tomato sauce (organic canned from Trader Joe's is fine) why the heck would you need to add any water? The foil can come off after an hour, add the mozza & cook until melted, bubbly and browned:15-20 mins & put under broiler if needed to brown.

Ingredient list is off - used 4 eggplants and got 3 layers using every 1/2" slice. Need a mandolin so all slices are uniform. Amount of olive oil to brush both sides of eggplants is woefully small - used a half cup. Careful with the salt - sprinkle one side not both. When sauteeing the lamb drain the fat/oil off. Used 1/2 cup warm water. Tip - when slicing mozzarella put it in the freezer for a half hour so it gets hard enough to slice even pieces and doesn't fall apart in your hands.

Maureen Abood (the creator of the recipe) has this recipe on her website; her instruction regarding the water is as follows: ---- Pour enough water around the edges of the dish to fill the gratin a little more than halfway. This is an important step or your sauce will be too thick; it may seem watery when you do this but the sauce will thicken as it bakes. ---- (She doesn't specify an amount.)

I made this with my son on a week night when we needed a little relaxing time in the kitchen. It is a little involved, but that works well for a joint project. It produces a very satisfying family meal. Amendments: consider adding 1T. of a cumin-coriander based rub (goes well with the lamb); chicken stock instead of water; a more flavorful melting cheese (we used munster, but fontina would be good); pine nuts got skipped due to cost, and it was fine. A barbera was great with this dish.

Peeling the eggplant is unnecessary. The skin help keep it together, besides being delicious by itself.