Name: Stuffed aubergines and courgettes in a rich tomato sauce (Baatingan w kusaa bil banadoura)
Yield: Serves six as a main or twelve as a side
Cuisine: Palestinian
Ingredients: Salt and black pepper; 700 g courgettes (between 3 and 6, depending on size); 5 g parsley leaves, roughly chopped; 2 onions, finely diced (350 g); 2½ tbsp olive oil; 5 g mint leaves, roughly torn; 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely diced (10g); 175 g Egyptian rice, or pudding rice; 1 kg tomato passata; 60 ml olive oil; About 3 spring onions, finely sliced (35 g); 20 g dill, roughly chopped; 15 g mint leaves, roughly chopped; 15 g parsley leaves, roughly chopped; 250 g Greek-style yoghurt, to serve; 1 tbsp caster sugar; 5 g dill, picked; 750 ml chicken stock (or water); ½ tsp ground cumin; 1 spring onion, thinly sliced (5g); ½ tsp ground cinnamon; 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 1 tbsp coriander seeds, lightly crushed in a pestle and mortar; 250 g lamb mince (or beef mince or a mixture of both); ¾ tsp ground allspice; 100 ml olive oil; 1 lemon: finely grate the zest to get 1 tsp; 700 g aubergines (between 3 and 6, depending on size); 350 g ripe tomatoes (2 large), coarsely grated

Preparation info

Serves
six
as a main

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Falastin

By Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley

Published 2020

About

Stuffing vegetables is such an everyday event in the Palestinian kitchen that most cooks have a special knife to help them with the task. It’s called a manakra, with a thin blade curved into a semicircle and both sides serrated. You can get them online or in specialist shops but, for a good alternative, a swivel peeler (the straight ones, as opposed to the y-shaped ones) or a corer both work very well. Sami and Tara were also shown how to use a power drill, by some ladies serving lunch out