Aubergines stuffed with baked meat

Ingredients

4 eggplants
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 red pepper
300g of minced pork
300g of minced beef
500g of crushed tomato
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
70g of flour
70g butter
1l whole milk
1 teaspoon nutmeg
100g grated cheese
salt and pepper
olive oil

Preparation

1.- Cut the part of the stem of the eggplant. Then we cut it lengthwise, in half and in each half, we are going to make some cuts with a knife. Without reaching the part of the skin. We make a few cuts, first along and then across, to finally get some cuts "in the form of a grid". Once this is done, put them in a baking tray, water the meat part with a small splash of oil (the eggplant will absorb it immediately) and put it in the oven, previously heated to 180ºC. We leave here about 20 minutes.

2.- After the time, we retire and we hope that they are tempered a bit. Then, with a spoon we remove the pulp, keeping the skin intact. Being partially baked, it will separate very easy.

3.- In a large skillet, heat a drizzle of olive oil over a low heat. Once it is hot, add the garlic cloves, onion and red pepper well chopped. Season and let cook for 15 minutes, while stirring frequently.

4.- After 15 minutes, add the aubergine meat, previously minced. Incorporate with the rest of the vegetables and add the minced pork and veal. With the help of a wooden spoon, we are crumbling the meat, so that there are not very large mazacotes and to go integrating it with the rest of the ingredients. Cook two or three minutes, until you lose the color to raw.

5.- Now add the crushed tomato and the teaspoons of thyme and rosemary. Personally the combination of these two spices I love, but you can replace them with a spoonful of oregano. Mix and integrate all the ingredients and then, let it cook over a low heat for about 30 minutes. Until all the water that has released the minced meat and the tomato evaporates

6.- While it evaporates, we prepare the bechamel sauce. In another tall pot, put to heat the butter (you can replace it with olive oil) and once it has melted, add the flour. Mix and toast about 3 minutes. This mixture, is called "roux". After the time, we are adding little by little the milk. We add about 200ml and mix, until it is integrated with the roux. Once this is done, we add another 200ml and we integrate again. Repeat this step until all the milk is finished - and achieve a light béchamel sauce. That's when we add a teaspoon of nutmeg and reserve.

7.- With all this done, just fill the aubergines. We take the peels and fill them with a generous amount of the filling we had prepared. You can add to each shell the amount of filling you want. The important thing is to finish everything. This done, we water every aubergine stuffed with bechamel sauce. Finally sprinkle with cheese and grated and put them back into the oven, grill function at 200ºC. We leave them here about 10 minutes, until the cheese is grated.

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