eggplant polpette with speedy tomato basil sauce

Meatless meatballs, aubergine balls, vegetarian balls – I struggled a bit to name this recipe. Anyhow, I’ve settled on eggplant polpette. Eggplant because I taught it first in my cooking classes in California, polpette because, well, ‘balls’ is only ever going to get one reaction.

If you don’t like aubergine or eggplant I bet you’ll like this

There are some recipes that I teach that need a bit of hard sell and this is one. People often sit, arms closed, when I introduce this in a class. But once they taste the finished dish, and see how easy it is, those arms drop to grab seconds. This is one of the recipes that I get the most pictures of after class. I wish I had a dollar for every person who has said their child/partner doesn’t eat aubergine but has then gobbled these up.

The main reason for those closed arms is that so many people have very fixed ideas about aubergine. So if you’re not keen, know that there is nothing squidgy or slimy about the aubergine in the recipe – it is included to give body and an almost meatiness to the finished eggplant polpette.