Tag Archives: eggplant

Recipe: Baba Ghanoush

30 Sep

Years ago, I learned to make some Lebanese dishes from watching (and helping) college friends cook a few classics, but my main teacher was a cookbook called Lebanese Cuisine by Madelain Farah. The version I have is from 1979, meaning it predates the internet. (And no, I wasn’t in college in 1979; I bought the cookbook some years later). Despite there being so many delicious Lebanese recipes now available online, I still find myself going back to this well-loved, well-spattered, paperback cookbook for some of my favorites. It has accompanied me on many moves and is now held together with tape.

Ms. Farah was a straightforward recipe writer; no coddling of the reader for her. In her recipe for Baba Ghanoush (which she calls Baba Ghannuj, as there are many ways to spell it), the first instruction is written this way: “Eggplant may be baked or grilled over a flame until well done.” There’s a lot of room for interpretation in those instructions…. Ms Farah was also a proponent of mashing the ingredients, either with a potato masher or a wooden mallet. I now use a food processor, which may be anathema in some quarters, but it produces a silky smooth dip.

So, this recipe takes its inspiration from Madelain Farah’s, with a few twists: I added smoked paprika and cumin, which play on the smokiness of the eggplant and really help bring out its flavor. And I use a faster blending technique.

Baba Ghanoush

Ingredients:
2 medium eggplants (2 lb/900 gr total). Note: Ms Farah called for one large eggplant, but the larger the eggplant, the more seeds there are, so I prefer using two smaller ones. (Since I grow eggplant in my garden each summer, I can pick them at just the right size!).
olive oil

2 cloves of garlic, minced (we like garlic in our house; you can use 1 clove as the recipe originally called for)
1/4 c. (60 gr.) tahini
1/4 c. (60 ml.) lemon juice, or more to taste
1/4 tsp. smoked paprika
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. salt, to taste
1 tbsp. (15 ml.) water (optional)

To garnish:
–chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
–smoked paprika and cumin (or, substitute the paprika and cumin with sumac, which is a more traditional topping and one Ms. Farah suggested; both options taste great)
–olive oil

Preparation:

Cooking method #1: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Cut the eggplant(s) in half lengthwise, and brush a generous amount of olive oil on the cut sides. Place the cut sides down on a large baking sheet (use a rimmed one as the eggplant will get juicy). Bake for about 30-45 minutes until the eggplant is dark golden brown and very, very soft.

Cooking method #2: Grill the eggplant(s) cut side down on a barbecue, until golden and soft, taking care not to completely incinerate them (some burnt bits are ok and add to the flavor, but a carbonized eggplant is a step too far; I say this from experience).

Flip the eggplants over and let cool.

Scoop out the eggplant pulp and place in the bowl of a food processor, carefully removing any skin that may have made its way in, too. Also, check for big clumps of seeds; individual seeds are fine and will get blended right up, but I like to take out any big clusters if I see them, to ensure a smoother dip.

Add the remaining dip ingredients and process until nice and smooth, adjusting the ingredients to suit your taste. If the dip is too thick, you can add more lemon juice or a spoonful of water.

Pour the dip into a serving bowl. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and more smoked paprika and cumin (or use sumac instead); drizzle with olive oil.

Serve with pita bread, pita chips, and/or veggies — or use in a Middle Eastern wrap as a substitute for hummus. I also love putting Baba Ghanoush, lamb kafta, and some tabouli in a pita and calling it a meal.

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Recipe: Lamb with Eggplant, Tomatoes, and Pine Nuts

20 Apr

This is a Lebanese dish for saucy eggplant (and lamb) lovers. Lamb and eggplant are natural partners and frequent appear together in Middle Eastern, Turkish, Greek and Balkan dishes. There are many recipes for this as a stuffed eggplant dish but I like this deconstructed version, which layers the filling on top. As it all cooks together, the lamb and tomatoes season and soften the eggplant below, resulting in comforting, cinnamon-scented mouthfuls that are enhanced by the taste and texture of buttery pine nuts.

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Lamb and Eggplant

Ingredients:

olive oil
3 small-medium eggplants, thinly sliced
garlic powder
salt and pepper

1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. allspice
salt and pepper
1 lb. (450 gr.) ground lamb
1 can (14 oz./411 gr.) petite diced tomatoes
1 can (14 oz./411 gr.) tomato sauce

1/3-1/2 c. pine nuts
chopped parsley (optional; I forgot it this time around!)

Preparation

1. Cook the eggplant slices in olive oil (in a singe layer, working in batches) in a large frying pan over medium-high heat until they are golden, tending to them carefully so they don’t burn. You will likely need to add more oil to the pan with every new layer. Place the eggplant slices in the bottom of a 9×13-inch (23×33 cm) baking dish and sprinkle them with a little garlic powder, salt, and pepper as you layer them, while they are still warm. (I have a garlic salt grinder and sometimes grind that over the layers, along with some black pepper, so that’s another option.)

2. In another pan, cook the onion in about 2 tbsp. olive oil until soft. (Note: If you’d like to up the heat factor of this dish, you could also add a pinch of red-pepper/chili flakes along with the onions.) Add the minced garlic and cook a couple minutes more, then add the cinnamon and allspice and cook for another couple minutes. Remove the onions from the pan and set aside. Add the ground lamb to the pan and cook until no longer pink; drain,* then add the cooked onions, the diced tomatoes and the tomato sauce. Simmer until the liquid is slightly reduced, about 20 minutes. Check the seasonings after about 10 minutes, and add more cinnamon, allspice, salt, or pepper as needed.

3. Melt a bit of butter or olive oil in a small frying pan over medium heat and sauté the pine nuts until they start to turn golden.

4. Spoon the lamb mixture over the eggplant slices in the baking dish and sprinkle the pine nuts on top. The photo below shows this step halfway through.

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4. Bake at 350 degrees F (180 C) until bubbling, about 30 minutes.

5. Sprinkle chopped parsley on top and serve with vermicelli rice pilaf. I also like to eat the lamb and eggplant (and the rice) with plain full-fat yogurt on the side, too.

*In the United States, the lamb sometimes requires draining. If your lamb is leaner, you can add the ground lamb directly to the cooked onions in the pan and skip the draining part.

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Recipe: Spicy Indian Eggplant with Tomatoes

27 Oct

I have always loved logic problems. You know–the kind where a man in a blue coat on a bus is sitting two seats away from a woman with red hair who is diagonally across from another woman using an iPhone and one seat away from a man with a green scarf reading the paper.  Eventually, given more clues, you’d have to say where everyone was sitting, what color hair they had, what they were wearing, and what they were doing.

Perhaps that is why I also greatly enjoy certain culinary challenges. For example, tonight we had friends over for dinner and had a lovely time with them. But having lived in Berkeley, we learned early on to ask if our guests had any dietary preferences or restrictions. This time around, several of our guests could not eat dairy, gluten, or meat (two friends are each avoiding one of those items, the other cannot have two of them–but no one friend is avoiding all three). The remaining five people at the table tonight eat anything and everything. No one was vegan.

So, what to serve? In cases such as this, I find that Indian food is perfect. There are myriad vegetarian and non-dairy options, and rice does not contain gluten. So I decided to use this opportunity to experiment by making several dishes I haven’t tried before. This eggplant dish is one of them, and one of the reasons I chose it is that it can be served at room temperature. Anything that can be made ahead of time, I like. This recipe, which family members deemed a keeper, is adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking.

Spicy Indian Eggplant with Tomatoes
Serves 6
[Updated 9 March 2021]

1 tsp. ground ginger
6 large cloves garlic, minced
1/8 c. (30 ml.) water

1 3/4 lb. (795 gr.) baby eggplant
about 1.5 c. (415 ml.) canola or vegetable oil

1 tsp. whole fennel seeds
1/2 tsp. whole cumin seeds
1 (15-oz./425 gr.) can petite diced tomatoes, drained, liquid reserved
1 tbsp. ground coriander
1/4 tsp. ground turmeric
1/8 tsp. cayenne (or chili flakes)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Preparation

  1. Combine the ginger, garlic and water in a small bowl; set aside.
  2. Cut the eggplant lengthwise into halves, then cut each half lengthwise into four strips; cut the strips in half crosswise.
  3. Heat 1/2 c. (140 ml.) of the oil in a deep frying pan over medium-high heat; when hot, add one layer of eggplant and cook until the eggplant is golden-brown, turning pieces over as they cook. Remove eggplant and drain on a layer of paper towels.
  4. Repeat until all eggplant slices have been cooked, adding additional oil to the pan each time as needed.
  5. Once all the eggplant has been cooked, keep about 3 tbsp. of the oil in the pan, and discard the rest.
  6. Add the fennel and cumin seeds to the hot oil in the pan. Stir for a few seconds, then add the tomato, the ginger-garlic mixture, and the coriander, turmeric, cayenne, salt, and sugar.
  7. Stir and cook for 5-6 minutes, breaking up the tomato pieces with the back of a slotted spoon. Continue to cook until the mixture gets thick and paste-like.
  8. Return the eggplant to the pan and gently mix in; add the lemon juice. Cook on medium-low for about 10 minutes, adding some of the reserved tomato liquid if the eggplant looks too dry.
  9. Check the seasonings and adjust as needed (you may like to add more salt, or a pinch more sugar, or a bit more lemon juice).
  10. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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Recipe: Eggplant with Garlic Vinaigrette

23 Apr

I love eggplant–any which way, shape, or form–and this recipe is one of my favorite ways of making it. Caveat: in addition to liking eggplant, you must really like garlic, too, and you must eat this with other garlic lovers, because this is not a subtle dish–it is very ‘aromatic.’  Nonetheless, it is a beloved dish at our house–my daughter ate almost half of this platter of eggplant by herself!

I have always pan-fried it, pouring liberal amounts of olive oil into the pan as needed–but you could also try grilling whole eggplant slices then drizzling with the vinaigrette. The eggplant is great on its own, but is lovely when combined with other things. For our Mediterranean antipasti/tapas/mezze meal this past weekend, we created mini open-faced sandwiches by slathering pieces of crusty baguette with Turkish Feta Dip with Paprika, then topping with the eggplant and some Roasted and Marinated Bell Peppers. The eggplant is great with pita and hummus, too.

Eggplant with Garlic Vinaigrette

2 eggplants
salt and pepper
olive oil

Vinaigrette:
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 tsp. red wine vinegar
2 tbsp. olive oil
sprinkle chili flakes/crushed red pepper

Preparation

1. Slice eggplant into 1/4-inch slices, sprinkle with salt, and set in colander in sink to drain for about 30 minutes.
2. In a small bowl, combine the vinaigrette ingredients.
3. Rinse eggplant with cold water and pat dry between two dish towels, then cut the slices into quarters. Sprinkle with pepper.
4. Heat a cast-iron frying pan on medium-to-high heat, add a liberal amount of olive oil, then add eggplant quarters in batches (a single layer at a time). Cook until eggplant is dark golden brown on all sides, turning eggplant over with tongs to ensure even cooking, and adding more olive oil as necessary.
5. When each batch is done, arrange on serving plate and use a small spoon to drizzle a tiny bit of the vinaigrette onto each piece of eggplant while the eggplant is still hot (try to get a bit of garlic on each piece). Continue cooking all eggplant in batches, drizzling each batch with the garlic vinaigrette. The eggplant will soak up the vinaigrette.
6. Serve at room temperature.

Adapted from Joanne Weir’s From Tapas to Meze.

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