Vinny’s
Roasted Eggplant Spread great on crackers or rolled into puff pastry.
This is a great side dish or appetizer.
1 medium eggplant, peeled
2 red bell peppers, seeded
1 red onion, peeled
1 sweet yellow onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons good olive oil
1 tablespoon mixed Italian herbs
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon tomato paste, or about 1 tomato (Small) chopped up.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Cut the eggplant, bell pepper, and onion into 1-inch cubes. Toss them in a large bowl with the garlic, olive oil, salt, herbs and pepper. Spread them on a baking sheet. Roast for 45 minutes, until the vegetables are lightly browned and soft, tossing once during cooking. Cool slightly.
Place the vegetables in a food processor fitted with a steel blade, add the tomato paste, and pulse 3 or 4 times to blend.
Taste for salt and pepper.
Serve with toasted pita triangles or crackers.
Now that we have the spread, we need to get it into the puff pastry.
I don’t recommend you try to make the puff pastry, way too hard, and much easer to pick up at your local food market, in the freezer/pie suction.
Thaw out one of the sheets of puff pastry and let thaw for about 30 minutes. Then flour your cutting board and roll out your pastry. Using a spatula, spread a nice ¼ inch evenly all over pastry, leaving about a ¾ inch area at one end.(this is where you will seal it with a little egg wash) Carefully roll up your stuffed pasty and cut into ½ to ¾ inch rounds.
