Maureen Abood’s Eggplant With Lamb, Tomato and Pine Nuts Recipe (2024)

This is a delicious recipe, but as with many of the others from Melissa Clark, the ingredient amounts and cooking times are off. I have a professional oven with extremely accurate temperature. A total of 105 minutes is way excessive for this dish. I also found that I needed more eggplant to make three layers than two large eggplants produced.

Happy to see that Maureen Abood's excellent recipes are getting the attention they deserve. On her website, this recipe notes that the mozzarella is optional. I suggest not including it and instead serving this delicious dish with lebnah - strained plain yogurt.

Great, but I have lots of suggestions.
Standard large eggplants yielded enough for only two layers. Still fine.
Do not need to add extra water.
Do not need such a long cooking time.
Added extra garlic, extra S and P, and a bit more cinnamon.
Pine nuts were key.

It's a keeper. I read the comments before making it and added extra garlic, 1 tsp of coriander and cumin each and just half a cup of water. Didn't add butter to the pine (200g). It was delicious. Had lots of liquid in the dish but simply removed some before adding the cheese. I strongly recommend the nuts and the cheese, don't think it'll taste so good without.

Sophia I don't think so - I was wondering that myself at first after reading all the comments but just made it and a full cup of liquid does get absorbed if you cook it for the full suggested time. It does say "pour around the perimeter of the dish", which could I suppose mean IN or OUT of the baking dish...but works great inside - and, usually if you need to transfer dish to a tray the directions indicate that step.

Made ahead of time (half recipe) incorporating other suggestions:
add ras el hanout (same amt as cinnamon) to lamb
less water by half
bake for 1 hr, then put in fridge
take out, top with mozzarella and bake 30 min at 350
wonderful!

I made a few changes in the recipe. The main one was using feta instead of mozzarella. It was very good and I will cook it again.

I gave this recipe a different twist: I cut the eggplants in thin length-wise slices, then I laid some filling on top of the short side of each slice and rolled the slices as I would crepes or manicotti. Continued with the recipe as given, but added all-spice instead of cinnamon, only 1/2 cup water and used Gruyère cheese instead of mozzarella. A huge success for my family and friends!

The flavor of this dish is wonderful. I cook just for myself, so halved this recipe, and found the quantities wrong. FAR TOO MUCH water, and not enough eggplant to make the layers. Next time I will use more eggplant and very little water, just a dribble or two for moisture. or I will just dilute the tomato sauce a bit.

This was absolutely delectable. Please don't add any water to the casserole. If you've browned the eggplant slices to a "deep mahogany brown" as the recipe states, the ground lamb is cooked, & you are adding 3 1/2 cups tomato sauce (organic canned from Trader Joe's is fine) why the heck would you need to add any water? The foil can come off after an hour, add the mozza & cook until melted, bubbly and browned:15-20 mins & put under broiler if needed to brown.

Ingredient list is off - used 4 eggplants and got 3 layers using every 1/2" slice. Need a mandolin so all slices are uniform. Amount of olive oil to brush both sides of eggplants is woefully small - used a half cup. Careful with the salt - sprinkle one side not both. When sauteeing the lamb drain the fat/oil off. Used 1/2 cup warm water. Tip - when slicing mozzarella put it in the freezer for a half hour so it gets hard enough to slice even pieces and doesn't fall apart in your hands.

I made this with my son on a week night when we needed a little relaxing time in the kitchen. It is a little involved, but that works well for a joint project. It produces a very satisfying family meal. Amendments: consider adding 1T. of a cumin-coriander based rub (goes well with the lamb); chicken stock instead of water; a more flavorful melting cheese (we used munster, but fontina would be good); pine nuts got skipped due to cost, and it was fine. A barbera was great with this dish.

Maureen Abood (the creator of the recipe) has this recipe on her website; her instruction regarding the water is as follows:----Pour enough water around the edges of the dish to fill the gratin a little more than halfway. This is an important step or your sauce will be too thick; it may seem watery when you do this but the sauce will thicken as it bakes.----(She doesn't specify an amount.)

Peeling the eggplant is unnecessary. The skin help keep it together, besides being delicious by itself.

Bake, don’t broil eggplant. Add no less than 1 1/2 lbs meat. Add lots more Cinnamon, cumin, cardamom to meat. Add a spice.

Also great with ground turkey substituted for the red meat.

This is Mediterranean comfort food at its best. It was just delicious. I was overly generous with cinnamon, allspice and Aleppo pepper. Will definitely be making it again. I am tempted to start with a layer of very thin sliced potatoes on the bottom next time to cook at one time.

If you don’t have 90 minutes to cook this excellent recipe, cook UNCOVERED for 45 minutes; then cook with motzerella for 15-20 minutes. ALMOST AS GOOD.

This was delicious. I added 1/2 tsp. of ras el hanout as someone suggested and used Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce recipe. Prepared the entire recipe and divided into 2 8”in Pyrex pans, freezing one for a future dinner. Also, did not use any water and cooked it covered for 30 minutes, uncovered with the mozzarella for 20. It’s important to use very large eggplants or 3 smaller ones and then serving over basmati is perfect.

I'm looking forward to making this recipe again this winter. I have used slivered almonds as a substitute to pine nuts to good effect. I toast them but don't use the butter-- dry pan. I've added some golden raisins in the past, I think that gives the dish an interesting complexity. I saw the note about maybe slicing the eggplant lengthwise and am intrigued. I always stumble at water "around the perimeter." Bain marie or in the pan itself?! I've done both. Use less if in pan itself.

I am an experienced cook, and I follow recipes tothe letter. There is no question that this dish requires 3 eggplant. I had someone helping me and it took longer than 2 hours. Unfortunately, Whole Foods was out of ground lamb, so I had to use beef. I think it would be much better with lamb.I served it with rice and a green salad. I will definitely make it again.

This was absolutely delicious. I definitely sliced the eggplant too thinly and burnt a few pieces, but that was on me. Really fantastic flavors.

Add more lamb. And increase seasonings accordingly. Don’t add the water. Use the sauce recipe. Done.

Don’t add any water. Without the water it was already soupy. After reading all the comments, I skipped the water but checked halfway through cooking,Delicious dish. I doubled the cinnamon and also added cumin and coriander. I suggest you taste the lamb mixture flavor before assembling. I also added mushrooms when the lamb was almost done. Will make again.

I followed other reviewers and decided not to add any water. I did use almost three eggplants and much more homemade tomato sauce. I had mushrooms so sautéd and added with lamb. Then I tasted and had to add much more cinnamon, (and cumin and coriander). All my vegetables, tomato sauce and even lamb were farm raised. It was soupy so I served with bread. Will make again. No need for water, just up the tomato sauce. Great favor but not an easy, quick recipe.

I made this dish tonight, following directions exactly as they are—and it was incredible! I’d say with cook time and prep it took more like 3 hours. But, so worth it!

meant to add, 2 eggplants is a bit general, plan for enough eggplant slices (broiled) to create 3 layers

I've made this twice within three weeks. It's that good. The ground lamb that I can get is very fatty so I cooked that first and strained off most of the fat. Then I added the onions, garlic, etc. This decreased the fat in the recipe but the end result still had tons of flavor and unctuousness.

I made this last night for the first time-half recipe followed exactly with the single change noted in comments below to add water only to the rim of baking pan and cooked for one hour- I used a 7X13 casserole and got the full 3 layers of eggplant and it was absolutely full. Delicious, will make again on a cooler day in the fall.