Baba Ghanoush (!!!)
Alright everybody, get ready for my favorite dip recipe. Again, there’s no picture for this recipe because the last time I made this, it was eaten within about ten minutes. No time for pictures when there’s eating to be done! I got the original recipe from the Black Dog Restaurant Cookbook, but I’ve made a few changes.
- 1 medium to large eggplant
- 2-3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
- 2 tsp olive oil, plus 2-3 Tbsp used later
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup tahini
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tsp ground cumin (or to taste)
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika (or to taste)
- fresh ground black pepper (to taste)
- 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
Preheat your oven to about 400 degrees. Pour a bit of the olive oil into a baking dish, and rub some on the eggplant as well. Pierce the eggplant 4 or 5 times with a fork. Roast for about 45 minutes to an hour. The eggplant will deflate and look all sad and pitiful and delicious. During the last ten minutes, throw the garlic cloves into the pan and roast them as well. Once everything’s done, remove from the oven and allow the eggplant to cool.
Mash the garlic cloves with salt. Once the eggplant is ready to go, cut open the skin and scoop out the insides into a bowl. Add in all the other ingredients and mix well. (This dip is easily made by hand, but I recently made it with my food processor and that was oh so nice. Made everything seem a bit more uniform. If you use a food processor though, I would recommend stirring in the pine nuts after you’re done blending everything else.) Adjust the seasoning to your liking. I usually end up adding more spices, or more lemon juice, and you can never go wrong adding more olive oil.
