April 4, 2018
This week I have for you a nice and simple recipe that I’ve been making a lot recently. I’ve never really known how to make baba ganoush, and I’ve never attempted to learn because I’ve always put it in the too hard basket. I don’t know why this is because I have made other dips (although I guess hummus is basically the easiest dip you can make), but I think I always felt that baba ganoush would be too time consuming and complicated to make. So I finally gave it a try and now I’ve realised just how simple and delicious it is to make!
I love dips, and I feel like it is good for my bank account, as well as a bit healthier, to make them at home. I am always buying them when I have people over, and I decided I need to make more of an effort to make them myself. Once you have a food processor or blender, it really is a matter of blitzing up a few ingredients and you have something really delicious that would have cost $5 at least at the store. Now that I am expanding my horizons, I can spend that money on more important thing like cheese.
I have been able to try making baba ganoush a few times because I’ve been lucky enough to get free eggplants from work. One of the girls in my team has my dream veggie garden, and as her and her partner are not huge fans of eggplant, I have been the lucky recipient of a huge bag on a couple of occasions! This is what initially led me to making this dip in the first place because I needed something to make that used up bulk eggplants. I mean I love them probably more than the average person, but putting them into a dip seemed like a great option over eating them for every single meal (there were so many eggplants though I feel like we’ve been doing this anyway). So anyway, I’ve had a couple of interesting times making the baba ganoush…I definitely got a little too excited with the garlic on one batch that my friends still dutifully ate (two of them said they liked it but I was a little uncertain if they were just being nice). But I think I have now perfected the recipe and so I decided it was worth sharing with you all!
- 14-15 thin eggplants poked with a fork
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Juice of one lemon
- 1 tbsp tahini
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp cumin
- salt and pepper, to taste
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Preheat the oven to 200C (400F). Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a fry pan over a high heat. Add as many eggplants as will fit in one layer to the fry pan and cook until the skin has blackened, turning to reach cook all sides. The eggplant should be soft to touch.
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Remove the eggplant from the fry pan and place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Cook the remainder of the eggplant until all the eggplants are softened.
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Place the baking sheet in the oven and cook for 15 minutes, or until the eggplant has completely softened and reduced in size. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
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Once the eggplant is cool, peel the skin from the flesh and place the flesh in the blender. Add the remaining olive oil, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, cumin and salt and pepper to taste to the blender, and blend until all the ingredients are combined into a smooth dip (add additional olive oil if it is too thick).
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Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of dukkha or paprika alongside bread, carrots or crackers.
If you don't have thin eggplants, feel free to use the normal, large variety. I would do 1.5-2 of these eggplants, and just increase the frying time to ensure they are cooked through.
It makes it so much easier making dips now that I have a high speed blender. I used the magic bullet for this one, and even though it blends it so well the dip steams slightly, it makes the smoothest dip I’ve ever had! It’s also really easy to clean up and nice and quick. If you don’t have one of these, you’ll be fine to use either a regular blender, or even a food processor! My food processor is out of action at the moment so it forced me to use my blender, but I’m so glad that I gave it a try because it worked out really well!
Although this dip takes a little bit longer than a hummus to make because you have to bake the eggplants first, it is well worth the effort. The eggplants give off the most amazing smokey flavour that tastes so good with lemon juice and tahini. It also lasts for weeks after which surprised me! I’ve been enjoying it with a carrot if I’m hungry before dinner, but it also tastes awesome on corn chips. I also paired this with some middle eastern lamb mince and pita bread and it was absolutely delicious. I think it would go really well with greek style slow roasted meat too!
Until next time, happy eating!
Ella xx
