Stuffed sour dough bread

Vegan/vegetarian

I wanted to call this dish scrumdiddlyumtious. The whole time I was making it my mouth was watering. I was determined not to eat while I cooked. I really wanted to savour the moment when I sat down to eat. The effort to resist the smell was killing me, the aroma coming out of the oven was so delectable. But I knew if I tasted it once, then I would taste again and again (and let’s face it, the dividing line between tasting, eating and devouring is easily crossed when you enter on they slippery slope).

I really wanted to experience the combination of the crunch of the toasted bread and the full flavour of the eggplant drowned in tahini sauce...

Let me tell you it didn’t disappoint; my taste buds were jumping for joy.

But what I’m most chuffed about is that I made up the recipe from scratch and it all came about from my partner buying the wrong bread…

Filling

• Ingredients

• 1 large eggplant 700g cut into squares

• 4 cloves garlic crushed

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 4 teaspoons zaatar

• 2 teaspoons cumin

• 2 teaspoons coriander

• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika

• 5 tablespoons olive oil + 2

• 4 tablespoons roasted pine nuts

• 1 small container of mixed marinated olives feta and tomatoes(you can purchase them at the deli in coles for $5 it doesn’t have weigh it just says 'small tub’). If you are vegan omit the cheese or use vegan cheese

• 1 round loaf of bread (I bought sour dough olive bread)

• 2 tablespoons finely chopped continental parsley

Tahini sauce

ingredients

• Ingredients

• 4-5 tablespoons fresh continental parsley, chopped

• 1/2 cup tahini

• 1/2 cup water

• juice of 1 lemon

• salt to taste

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200c

2. In a bowl stir all of the tahini ingredients together, set aside.

3. In a large bowl, mix the spices with 5 tablespoons of oil then toss in eggplant and mix until throughly coated with spices.

4. Spread the eggplant evenly on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

5. Roast in the oven for 20mins then take out of the oven, and with a basting brush, brush the eggplant with ONE(of the two) extra tablespoons of olive oil.

6. Put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

7. While the eggplant is in the oven, cut out the inside of the bread then cut it roughly into squares. In a bowl, mix the 2nd extra tablespoon of oil with the bread. Spread the bread on a baking tray lined with baking paper for 8-10 min.

Assembly

1. In a bowl, mix the eggplant and the marinated loves, feta and tomatoes.

2. Pour 1/3 of the tahini sauce into the base of the bread and make sure it’s throughly covered inside.

3. Use roughly half the amount of the eggplant mixture and stuff it into the bread, drizzle with another 1/3 of the tahini sauce

4. sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of finely chopped parsley and 2 tablespoons of toasted pine nuts. Repeat using the remainder of the ingredients.

5. If you have left over eggplant, just put it in a container in the fridge and it will last for a few days.