Gourmet Galley for Feb. 9, 2012

Advocate staff photo by ARTHUR D. LAUCKEggplant dressing, a ground meat, rice and chopped eggplant mixture, can be stuffed into an eggplant shell, topped with Parmesan cheese and baked.

Southerners love eggplant, but some of you may not be familiar with Eggplant Dressing unless you were from “rice country,” namely southwestern Louisiana, or you have Cajun roots.

Eggplant Dressing is basically a ground meat and rice dressing with chopped eggplant added to the meat mixture.

I always serve this as a main dish with a couple of vegetables and a salad on the side, but many families use this dressing as a side dish. This is a good way to stretch 1½ pounds of ground beef.

Instead of peeling the eggplant, I cut the eggplant in half, scooped out the flesh and left a sturdy shell.

After I made the dressing, I spooned it into the eggplant shells.

That’s a nice way to present the dish and freeze it. You will have more dressing than the eggplant shells will hold. So, the extra dressing can be placed in a lightly greased casserole dish.

A stuffed half eggplant is a larger portion than you probably need, but it can be cut into smaller portions after it’s heated.

If pressed for time, you can serve it right after you add the cooked rice.

To hold it for later, spoon it into a lightly greased casserole dish, top with parmesan cheese and refrigerate until ready to heat and serve.