Aubergine Roulé

Just back from a glorious sunny warm week teaching in France on our French Cooking Holiday and this Aubergine Roulé was one of the most popular dishes. It's summery and perfect as a starter or as a light main course with salads.

Aubergine Roulé with Tomato & Basil Vinaigrette

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 2 Aubergines (400g)
• 175g Mozzarella
• 60g sun-dried tomatoes, in oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• handful fresh basil leaves

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/Gas6.
2. Slice the aubergines lengthways thinly about ½ cm thick.
3. Brush a baking tin with olive oil and lay the aubergine slices on it, then brush the tops of the aubergine slices with olive oil. Bake until just cooked, but not dried out and burnt. Leave to cool.
4. Slice the mozzarella, into finger sized slices.
5. Slice the sun-dried tomatoes into slivers.
6. To roll up the aubergines, lay out a slice of cooked aubergine. Place a slice of mozzarella at the bottom of the length of aubergine, top with slivers of sun-dried tomatoes, basil leaves & season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
7. Roll up the aubergine into a roulé. Repeat until you have rolled up all the aubergine slices.
8. Heat the roulés up gently in the oven, just until the mozzarella melts.

Tomato & Basil Vinaigrette

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp wine vinegar
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tsp apple juice concentrate
• 6 large ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded & diced fine
• salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 8 large basil leaves chiffonade

Method:

1. To peel the tomatoes, put a slit in each tomato, put them in a bowl & pour boiling water over them, after 5 minutes, the skins should peel off easily.
2. Cut the tomatoes in half, de-core, de-seed & dice finely by hand or in a food processor.
3. Add all the other ingredients & mix well or quickly whiz in the food processor.
4. Leave for an hour for the flavours to develop.

Tips:

• A chiffonade is a very finely sliced roll of basil leaves. When you chop basil leaves they bruise and go brown. If you roll them into a little sausage and thinly slice it reduces the amount of bruising.