Madfūna (Stuffed 'Buried' Eggplant)

Ingredients

• fatty meat
• tail fat
• dirham salt
• dirham dried coriander
• cinnamon stick
• lean red meat
• chickpeas
• eggplant (bādhinjān)
• onion
• saffron
• rosewater

Instructions

1. Sweat small-cut fatty meat in rendered tail fat with water, a dirham salt, a dirham coriander and a cinnamon stick; boil once and skim.
2. Pound lean meat fine, parboil in salted water, add a handful of soaked coarse-pounded chickpeas — this is the stuffing.
3. Cap and hollow the seeds from large eggplants (keeping them intact), stuff with the meat and the usual spices.
4. Lay a little cut onion in the pot, arrange the stuffed eggplants over it.
5. Color the broth with saffron, dust with coriander and cinnamon, sprinkle rosewater, settle over a gentle fire and take up.