Aubergine Explosion

After hearing about the bacon explosion I wanted to try my hand at a vegetarian version of it. I thought for a while about it and decided that woven aubergine was the best choice of materials. You'll also need a mandoline to slice to the aubergine thinly enough for this recipe to work. The aubergine strips you weave to make the outside of this dish don't need to be single long pieces. As long as you slice it thinly enough then they should hold together reasonably well.

Ingredients:

• 2 large onions, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 350g mushrooms, cleaned and finely chopped
• 2 tsp dried tarragon
• 2 large aubergine
• some olive oil for greasing of foil

Method:

1. Fry the onion in the oil in a saucepan over a medium heat until soft.
2. Add the mushrooms, dried tarragon and a couple of tbsp of water.
3. Place a lid on the saucepan and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes to prevent it from burning.
4. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
5. Wash the aubergine and remove the top and bottom of each one.
6. Use the mandoline on a fairly thick setting to slice the aubergine into about 1mm thick slices. Any leftover or malformed pieces of aubergine can be finely chopped and added to the mushroom mixture.
7. Place a large sheet of kitchen foil on a baking tray and grease it with olive oil.
8. Weave the slices of aubergine in regular columns and rows on the baking tray. You want each row to alternated in going under and over the columns it crosses and visa versa.
9. Spread the cooked mushroom mixture over the woven auberinge.
10. Carefully roll up the aubergine by lifting the foil. Use the foil to wrap it up tightly.
11. You should now have a large sausage shaped lump of aubergine and mushroom wrapped in foil.
12. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.
13. Carefully unwrap from the foil before serving and serve with bread or pasta.

Serves 2.