As we approach the last days of the holiday of Sukkot, I wanted to share a nontraditional “stuffed” recipe, for those looking for a change from traditional holipches/holishkes (stuffed cabbage). If you’ve always wondered why Hungarian style stuffed cabbage is served up on Sukkot, it’s because we want to celebrate the abundance of the harvest season. Fall is when farmers harvest their wheat in Israel, and stuffing vegetables with filling symbolizes their desire for a year of overflowing harvest. Although it is customary for many to eat stuffed cabbage, any stuffed recipe is well suited to honor this custom. You can stuff grape leaves, zucchini, peppers, or even fruit for dessert!
As I mentioned in this post, I was first introduced to the idea of mechshie when I married into a sephardic family. My mother in law taught me to prepare various dishes of meat & rice filled vegetables – each with it’s own unique flavor. Having grown up with these traditional Syrian dishes, my husband loves when I surprise him by making them. Although my twist on tomato & zucchini mechshie (which I’ve dubbed “mechshie ratatouille”) is my all time favorite, this lighter stuffed eggplant version is a close second.
If you want to go the traditional route, but you’re overwhelmed by the idea of making stuffed cabbage, try my Bubby’s cabbage soup with flanken. It tastes just like stuffed cabbage, without all the work! You can even leave out the flanken and make mini meat & rice balls instead.
Meat & Rice Stuffed Baby Eggplants
6-8 baby eggplants
Filling:
1 1/2 lb ground meat
2/3 c rice (I prefer basmati)
1/2 cup water
1 tsp allspice
kosher salt, to taste
Sauce:
3 cups water
juice of 1 lemon
1 head garlic, peeled
2 tbsp olive oil
kosher salt, to taste
Method:
To prepare the filling, combine the meat, rice, allspice, salt and water in a bowl and mix well to combine (I like to do this by hand, using gloves). Try to handle the meat gently, don’t squeeze it too much as this tends to toughen it up.
Slice the eggplants at both ends and core them using a paring knife (or a long vegetable corer, known as a ma’vdeh). Place all the pulp from the insides of the eggplants into a strainer and sprinkle generously with salt. Allow the pulp to rest for 20-30 minutes (this draws out the bitter liquid). Rinse the pulp with water to remove salt and add to the bottom of a wide saucepan.
Stuff the eggplants with the meat filling, taking care not to fill them too tightly as the rice will expand during cooking. Place them in the pot, sprinkling the garlic cloves all around. Drizzle the eggplants with olive oil, lemon juice and sprinkle with salt. Pour water into the pan, cover the pot and bring the liquid up to a boil over high heat. Lower the flame and simmer for 1-2 hours. For the last 30 minutes, uncover the pot and cook until the liquid reduces to a thick sauce.
NOTE: If you have leftover meat filling, roll it into small meatballs and place in the pot alongside the eggplant.
Related Recipes:
zucchini and tomato mechshie “ratatouille”
globe zucchini mechshie with tamarind and prunes
thank you VERY much my children love this soup, I could never find a great recipe . going today to get all the ingredients and surprising them this weekend . My Children are grown so Im taking the soup with me to NYC.
I’m glad you finally found the perfect recipe!
Hi I am Syrian a Jew from Brooklyn and grew up with many mechshie receipts. the traditional way of this dish is to use short grain rice or arobrio rice (rosotto rice) to make the hashu stuffing. Just make sure you rinse it well before mixing it with the meat. a 8 oz glass of rice to every lb of meat. Just thought you might like to know.
Thanks! This is how my Syrian (ex) Mother in law taught me to make it.
Oh this brings back such wonderful memories of my grandma. We are not Sephardic, but Romanians cook a lot of Turkish food and she made these. Never with allspice though, which seems like a nice touch. I think maybe she sprinkled in a little clove. Just wonderful!
These look and sound phenomenal! I would eat this for dinner any night!
Great recipe Chanie. I’ve made something similar before and everyone loved it. Also, I love the way you styled the dish. Beautiful pic.
Memories!! LOVE THIS! I haven’t made this dish since before we had kids. Thanks for the refresher. This must hit our menu soon.
Great pics for this recipe, really instructional. Thanks
Yum, these look adorable and delicious
It reminds us of a dish our grandmother makes. We miss her cooking, can’t wait to go Israel and have her food again.
ooh, this is our kind of recipe—literally! you may think it’s “non-traditional,” but in our house, a holiday isn’t a holiday without a mechshe!
These are so cute, great presentation.
This looks amaze! I’ve only ever had stuffed eggplant in tomato sauce. But this is something I’ll have to try out.
Thanks! I love that it’s not as heavy as tomato-sauce based recipes. It’s filling but not heavy!
Chanie,
Thanks for this recipe! I’ve added it to the Farm Fresh Feasts Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me who love to eat from the farm share.
I appreciate your help in making this index better!
Thanks for including my recipes, Kirsten!
My wonderful MIL makes this delicious dish, she stuffs vegetables better than anyone I know. We had meschi eggplant for holidays and it was so good, my husband said she made it with love.
My Syrian mother in law cooks with so much love to, so I totally understand!
I don’t usually leave comments. BUT, THANK YOU, so much. Totally appropriate that I needed to get this recipe from Brooklyn. My family never wrote it down, it was just what we made. But I have memory issues now, and I know what it should look and smell and taste like, I know there should be eggplant pulp in the pot. I know it isn’t sweet and there is no tomato sauce. Yours is the only recipe I can find that matches what my aunts taught my mother to make and what she taught me to make. Thank you so much.
You are so welcome Salha, this totally made my day!
For folk far from the comfort of the Brooklyn community, and other spots where no one thinks twice about dried eggplant skins, I found a supplier on line. Bakal International.
They have the dried skins for about $8 a bag (25 in a bag). Not on a string and not tied up with string, and so far, from the looks of it, none of them have worms, either. That was always a risk with the packs of 12 tied up in string.
Again, thanks for this particular recipe.
That’s really interesting! I would love to try dried eggplants.
hi im so excited to try these for the upcoming holiday. im just wondering if i could freeze them as i like to start my cooking early
Hi Deb, I think you would be able to freeze these.
Any ideas what to do with the extra eggplant? :)
Do you mean the insides that you removed from the eggplant? they were supposed to be added to the pot.
Will this recipe work with larger eggplants ?
Not really.
This looks so good. I’m going to try it today… I have dried eggplant that I will rehydrate and stuff, so I don’t have the core of the eggplant to lay on the bottom of the pan. I thought of lining it with potato though, what do you think? Or just leave potato out?
I originally was going to do stuffed grape leaves with potatoes but I’m out of grape leaves and I have the eggplants so going with that!
Thanks
Sure you can do the potato.