Santa is coming to town… are you also notorious for leaving your Christmas menu until the last minute? Looking around for the right ingredients, tossing ideas with your family and friends… until reaching the ‘moment suprême’ and the culinary climax when revealing this years’ Christmas menu. Our gastronomical Christmas centrepiece this year will be these aubergine (eggplant) rolls from the oven: extremely simple to prepare but ho ho ho… so delicious and fancy looking. Besides, it will make everyone’s taste buds go wild thanks to the creamy flavour of the mozzarella and almond pesto and the salty touch of the ham. Do you prefer the vegetarian way of life? No problem, just leave out the ham and add a grilled zucchini layer to your rolls or spread a thin layer of tomato sauce on the eggplant slices.
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 180 C.
- Cut the mozzarella into slices and let it drain to lose the excess moisture. Wash the eggplants, remove the ends and cut them lengthwise into slices of about 1 cm. Grill both sides of the eggplant for a few minutes and let them cool. Season with salt and pepper.
- Sprinkle the ham and the mozzarella over each eggplant slice and put them vertically in a baking tray. Drizzle with 1 dash of virgin olive oil and bake in the over at 180 degrees Celsius (356 degrees Fahrenheit) for about 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile make the pesto: roast the almonds in a pan and pour half of them in a blender. The other half will be used to decorate the dish at the end. Add the other pesto ingredients to the blender and mix intermittently for a few seconds in order not to overheat the basil leaves. You need a slightly grainy pesto.
- Serve the eggplant rolls with the light pesto and the roasted almonds which you have chopped a bit. Add fresh basil to your own preference and taste.