Baked Eggplants, Mashed Potato and Bolognese Sauce (Lagsane)

I concocted this dish, by combining ideas from the following 2 recipes from Food4Tots and Little Inbox Recipe. The 2 recipes are very similar, involving Bolognese sauce. For Food4Tots, it only consists of eggplants, so I felt it won't be filling enough for a 1-dish meal. So I combined with Little Inbox Recipe, which is primarily consisting of mashed potato. By marrying these 2 recipes, I get a wholesome meal, consisting of carbohydrates from the mashed potatoes, vitamins and minerals from the eggplants and pasta sauce (fresh button mushrooms optional), and protein from the minced meat and mozarella cheese.

The dish looked and smelled really great and tasted soooo delicious. My kids and husband were full of praises, and they loved the dish so much.

Serves 3-4


Ingredients
- 1 medium sized eggplant (~25cm)
- 500g potato (~6 small potatoes. The ones I used are those normal ones found in the wet market. Next time, I'll try with US Russet Potatoes.)
- 250g minced meat
- 7 tbsp Prego's Fresh Mushroom Italian sauce (aka pasta sauce) (1/2 of the medium size 397g bottle, so abt 200g)
- 1/2 medium sized onion, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp olive oil for eggplant
- 2 tbsp olive oil for garlic, onion, minced meat
Mozarella Cheese

Marinate for Minced Meat
1 tbsp light soya sauce (slightly less than full)
Dash of pepper

Seasoning for Potato
1/2 tsp salt
Dash of pepper


Instructions
- Marinate minced meat - Mix minced meat with 1 tbsp light soya sauce and a dash of pepper, cover and refrigerate for 20-30min.
- Slice brinjal thinly cross section wise into 3mm thick slices. Soak in salted water (~1 tsp salt) to get rid of any bitterness.
- Wash potatoes and peel potato skin. Slice them cross section wise into 5mm thickness. Steam for 25min (after water already boiling), or till relatively soft.
- Remove brinjal from salted water, and pat dry. In a non-stick wok, add 1 tbsp olive oil to coat the wok thinly, and heat up. When oil is hot, add the brinjal to cover the base of the wok with 1 layer. Pan fry till lightly browned and both sides. (Need to flip. Best to use thongs rather than ladle, to make it easy to flip.) Set aside in a plate. Repeat until all the brinjal has been pan fried. (Next time I'll try just baking the brinjal with the rest of the ingredients all at once, instead of pan frying first, since my recipe only results in 1 layer of brinjal, which means it is right at the top, and there are no middle layers of brinjal, which without pan frying, may not be cooked thoroughly by just baking. I could pre bake the brinjal, maybe 5-8mins on each side?)
- Mash the potatoes. Sprinkle salt and pepper thinly over the potato, and continue mashing and mixing. (The mashed potato does not need to be mashed finely till a very smooth texture. The baking process will soften it further and make it smoother.)
To make Bolognese sauce:
- In non-stick wok, add 2 tbsp of olive oil. Heat up the wok. When oil is hot, add the garlic and stir fry till fragrant and very slightly brown.
- Add onion and stir fry till fragrant and lightly browned.
- Add in the minced meat and mix and stir fry, until the minced meat is just cooked.
- Add the italian pasta sauce, mix well with the minced meat and stir fry till well mixed and the sauce is bubbling gently.
Put the ingredients together into the baking dish:
- Preheat oven to 180 degC.
- In the baking dish (mine is 28cm diameter), spread the mash potato at the bottom and press to form a base.
- Spread the bolognese sauce evenly.
- Sprinkle a thin layer of mozarella cheese.
- Spread the eggplants in an even layer.
- Sprinkle with a dense layer of mozarella cheese. (Dense means that the grated cheese are close together, and not a thick layer. This is to ensure generous amount of cheese, and yet not thick, to enable it to melt and brown better.)
- Once oven is preheated, put the baking dish in and bake for 20min.
- Then increase temperature to 220degC and bake for a further 10min, to help the browning of the cheese.

Notes:
-Can include fresh button mushrooms into the bolognese sauce. Slice thinly.
- Above portion was mainly for 2A1C. For 3A2C, to increase the potato to 650g, minced meat to 350g, pasta sauce to 9 tbps, garlic to 3 cloves, onion to slightly more than 1/2 medium onion. The mashed potato and bolognese sauce layer would then become thicker. Brinjal remains are medium sized, as that should form only 1 single layer.