Lamb, feta and pine nut involtini

Lamb, feta and pine nut involtini
Home Cooking



I purposefully picked something that would take a while to make because I'm home alone and need to kill time. Originally, I picked the involtini because it seemed sort of pasta-ish without actually being pasta.

The original recipe I followed is from 'Nigella Bites' and is vegetarian. Non-vegetarian involtini normally contains veal but I chose lamb. The reason is that yesterday, when I was making my banana bran and walnut loaf, I accidentally poured pine nuts into the batter instead of walnuts. I fished them all out individually (quite a feat)and rinsed them. In an effort to use the pine nuts up before they went soggy, I really wanted to incorporate them into the involtini recipe (instead of using pistachios) and pine nuts go nicely with lamb. I also halved the original recipe to make a good amount for 2 people.

Lamb, feta and pine nut involtini
Serves 2

Ingredients:

For the sauce

• 1/2 red onion
• 1/2 clove of garlic
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 300g chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp sugar
• 3 long aubergines

For the stuffing

• 50g minced lamb
• 50g crumbed feta
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tbsp pine nuts
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 shallots - white only
• 1/2 tbsp capers, drained

For the top

• 20g feta, crumbed
• drizzle of olive oil
• fat pinch of oregano
• 2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted

Procedure:

Make the sauce first

1. Roughly chop the onion and press the garlic to loosen the skin. Remove skin and put garlic, onion and dried oregano in a food processor. Pulse until it is like a pulp.2. Cook in a saucepan with 1 tbsp olive oil over medium to low heat until softened.
3. Add the tomatoes and sugar, stir well. Turn heat down to low and simmer for about 20min. Check often to make sure sauce is not over-bubbling.

Meanwhile...

4. Slice the aubergines lengthwise. You'll have pieces that are skin-covered. Rather than throw these away, I chopped them up finely and fried briefly in oil before adding to the tomato and oregano sauce.
5. Fry or grill the rest of the pieces in oil until they are soft and slightly-brown on both sides. Drain off excess oil on absorbent paper towels. Set aside until you're ready to wrap them up.
The sauce should now be ready so remove from heat. Pop the lid on until you're ready to use.

Make the filling

6. Again, in the food processor blitz all the ingredients for the filling until it forms a reasonably smooth mix.7. Wrap a blob of filling within each piece of eggplant. Put the little rolls in an oven-proof dish.
Assembling the dish

8. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
9. Once they're all lined up. Pour a generous amount of sauce over the top.
10. Crumble on the remaining feta. Sprinkle more oregano on top and drizzle a bit more oil.
11. Bake for about 15-20min.
12. Serve with a sprinkling of toasted pine nuts!

I was worried every 5min that this dish wouldn't work out. I didn't have enough eggplant slices to use up the filling (I only used 2 aubergines, which is why I recommended 3 for you) so I had to sort of cut up some slices into 2 and improvise.

Plated up

Close-up of one roll

In the end, everything turned out really good. The lamb, pine nuts and feta compliment each other really well. Involtini is traditionally an Italian dish but the ingredients used here are distinctly Greek. Cultural influences aside, these are quite tasty :).