Baba Ganoush...Comfort food after a hectic day!!!
This is one comfort food which, for me, is a must-order at any Lebanese or Persian restaurant. Not much a fan of vegetables, let alone, eggplant; this one is a particular favorite of mine! A simple dish of eggplant, and yet so delicious! Easy to make and all you need are some pita breads. I did not have pita bread at home and had my dinner with the ganoush and tomato-basil flavored tortilla. A simple dinner it was, but loved it. And like every other recipe, I made very few of my own modifications to suit my palette.
Here goes the recipe:
Ingredients:
Steps:
3. Put the eggplant and the small boat of the garam masalas in a baking tray and at around 350 degrees F, let it roast for around 30mins.
6. Once the eggplant is cool enough, mash it with fork. For myself, to save time, I simply put it in the blender.
7. While making the paste(blending/mashing manually), add 2tsp of garlic(as I earlier mentioned, I love the garlic flavor in my food, especially dips!) and 2tsp of the eggplant juice that I saved earlier.
Here goes the recipe:
Ingredients:
- 1 large eggplant
- Minced garlic paste
- Tahini sauce
- Sumac
- Salt (to taste)
- Black pepper powder
- Cayenne Pepper
- Few parsley leaves for garnish
- Whole garam masala(cinnamon, cloves, cardamom)
- 4tbsp of yogurt
- The first and foremost step is roasting the eggplant. Before roasting, make some slits with knife or make some holes on the eggplant with fork so that heat is distributed evenly inside the eggplant and the eggplant is evenly roasted. I am adding a picture(slits might not be well visible. Sorry for that!). Brush little oil on the eggplant so that the eggplant does not stick to the baking tray.
 |
| Eggplant with slits |
2. Make a small boat of aluminum foil and put few cinnamon sticks, cardamom and cloves inside. The smoke of the garam masalas do render an amazing flavor later on.
4.After 30mins, when you take out the eggplant, you should see it rather soft. Immediately put the eggplant in cold water for 2-3mins so that it is very easy to peel the skin off.
5. After peeling off the skin, let the eggplant rest on a dish for 10-15mins. The eggplant cools down and simultaneously the eggplant juice oozes out. You can throw away the juice if you want. I did not! I kept 2 teaspoons to add it later to the ganoush.
6. Once the eggplant is cool enough, mash it with fork. For myself, to save time, I simply put it in the blender.
7. While making the paste(blending/mashing manually), add 2tsp of garlic(as I earlier mentioned, I love the garlic flavor in my food, especially dips!) and 2tsp of the eggplant juice that I saved earlier.
8. After the paste is ready, add 2-3tbsp of tahini sauce(I didn't make it. Maybe will try sometime later. I got it from a store nearby.), salt according to your taste, cayenne pepper, sumac(again my own addition) and yogurt. Mix it well so that the paste is evenly mixed with the ingredients.
9. Once this is ready now it's time to garnish. All I did is, using the spoon to create a circular trough and added olive oil.
10. Garnish with few fresh parsley leaves and few sprinkles of cayenne pepper and there goes your Baba Ganoush, ready to serve!
10. Garnish with few fresh parsley leaves and few sprinkles of cayenne pepper and there goes your Baba Ganoush, ready to serve!
P.S: Sumac is an Iranian spice widely used for making kebabs! You can find it in store. My labmate gave me the sumac. Thing to note: adding a little bit of sumac(few sprinkles) enhances the flavor to a great extent. But adding too much of it, makes the food bitter. Hence, be very careful while using it.
Comments
Post a Comment