Eggplants at Their Best: Baba Ganoush

I haven't ever gotten too excited over eggplant. Done right, they are heavenly, but there are so many ways to do them wrong. Under-cooked, they're weirdly spongy, and a bit bland. To me, they seem to require a little more finesse than other veggies, so admittedly I don't cook with them often. My eggplant love affair began after eating baba ganoush at an Israeli restaurant. I think, up until then, I imagined it was just a different type of hummus, au contraire! Baba ganoush is like hummus in that it also uses a tahini base, but instead of chick peas, the superstar is roasted eggplant. After reading the gist of the recipe, I thought, "that seems too easy"... To the kitchen!

I got this recipe from David Lebovitz, go ahead and read the entire post because he muses on dining in France, where baba ganoush is called caviar d’aubergines. Fancy.

Ready? You'll need:

3 medium-sized eggplants (perfect timing because eggplants are in season)
1/2 cup tahini (sesame paste)
1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
3 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1/8 teaspoon chile powder (I also added a pinch of Hungarian paprika for more smokiness)

1 tablespoon olive oil
a half bunch picked flat-leaf parsley or cilantro leaves

Pre-heat the oven to 375°. After you've picked out your prize winning eggplants, poke them a few times with a fork. If you have a gas stove top, turn your burner on, and put those eggplants right on the burner, one a piece. If you don't have a gas burner, that's okay. Just pierce them and move on to the next step.

Rotate them to evenly char the skin for 5-10 minutes, based on how smokey you'd like them. Before making this I've never put any vegetables directly on my stove top, but it's a really helpful technique! Apparently you can skin red peppers easily this way too. Watch them, otherwise they could set off the smoke detector. The skin gets charred and papery. I used tongs to transfer them to a baking sheet.

Bake them for 20 - 30 minutes. A knife should easily slide in without resistance. I put the timer on for 20 and test them. 

Let them cool before halving them and scooping out the roasted goodness. The skin should peel right off, if not, they could probably use some more oven time.

Blend the innards with the rest of the ingredients. *Be careful when scooping out the tahini. The oil naturally separates and sits on the top, so it's best to try to mix it up a bit. Easy as baba ganoush! 

Serve with fresh pita, toasted bread, or if you're like me, and have giant bags of Stacy's pita chips hanging around, use them. David remarks on how this would actually be a little more flavorful if you made it a day or two in advance, making it excellent for entertaining. For that extra presentation panache, when you're ready to serve, put the spread in a bowl and using a spoon swirl a spiral in the top. Drizzle some olive oil over and let it nestle in the indentations. Top with finely chopped parsley.

*Kitchen casualty! While mixing the tahini a big glob of oil sloshed out. I didn't realize it also got to the floor... Later I noticed a big oil slick on Dante's head; looks like he was helping himself to it!