Aubergine Involtini

Between moving back to London and starting a new job, I haven’t had much time for cooking lately. But last week I finally had two hours of free time – and, luckily, inspiration struck me at just the right moment. These involtini might take a long time to make, but they are definitely worth it and are sure to impress any guests. 

Ingredients (makes a dozen)

• 1 sweet potato, peeled and sliced (about the same size as fries)
• 2 large tomatoes, thickly sliced
• breadcrumbs
• ground pepper
• 2 aubergines
• 1 red bell pepper
• 100g walnuts
• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
• olive oil
• salt

Preparation (takes about 1 hour)

1. Preheat the oven to 200 °C
2. Drizzle the sliced sweet potato in olive oil and put in the oven
3. Drizzle the thickly sliced tomatoes with olive oil, then sprinkle a generous amount of breadcrumbs and pepper on top
4. Slice the aubergines length-wise (so you get long slices rather than circles) and fry in a pan with enough olive oil to submerge them halfway. You may need to keep adding olive oil as aubergines absorb oil very quickly.
5. In the meantime, blend the red bell pepper, walnuts, and 3 tbsp of olive oil, and the nutritional yeast in a food processor until blended but still crunchy
6. When the aubergines are ready, lay them out and spread a layer of the pepper and walnut paste on them.
7. Add 1 or 1/2 a tomato (depending on how big your aubergines were) to the middle of the slice
8. Add 3-4 sweet potato oven baked fries on the tomato
9. Roll the aubergine into little cones
10. Serve while still warm, eat, and enjoy!