Speedy baba ghanoush recipe

I lurrrrrrrrrrve baba ghanoush! It's like hummus, but with a lighter texture. And because affordable fresh eggplants, unlike canned chickpeas, are seasonal, it's something to be relished before the warm weather slips away.

Jane T. suggested microwaving the eggplant and by crikey it works! (I'm getting reacquainted with microwave cooking after not owning one for about a decade.)

What I did:

Cut the ends off a large firm eggplant, and peeled it.

Chopped it into chunks and put the chunks into a microwave steamer with a big splash (maybe 1/4 cup?) of water.

Microwaved it until it was very soft, about 10 minutes in total.

Put the eggplant (but not the cooking water) into my trusy food processor and blended it until smooth. Added about 1 tablespoon of tahini, about 1/2 a teaspoon of vege stock powder (salt would do fine too), the juice of one juicy wee lemon, and about 1/2 teaspoon of cumin powder. Oh, and about 1 teaspoon of brine from the olive jar (normally I'd add some olive oil, but I wanted to see how it would be without it - the brine adds a little olive-y flavour without the oil) and 2 drops of liquid smoke (to emulate the smokey flavour that roasting produces, without having to have the oven on for half an hour!).

Blended it all together again and declared it delicious!

The sharp-eyed amongst my readers may notice olive oil on top of the baba ghanoush in the photo. Yes, I confess, it is olive oil! Delicious though this stuff is, the khaki hue does not look sexy in photographs. Hence the tarting up with a few fork spirals, a dash of olive oil and a sprinkling of chopped chives. It's not quite up there with photoshopping 6 inches off models' waists, is it?!

Posted: Wednesday 11 January 2012

Comments

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Thanks!
Hi Jess. Thanks for your comment. Good idea about cooking the garlic with the eggplant!...
Posted: 2012-01-25 19:12 by Alice from Angel Food     [Delete]

So quick and easy!
I did this in far less than 1/2 hour - I also added two huge cloves of garlic to the steamer pot so the soft garlic was blended in too. I also used a tsp of blackstrap molasses in place of liquid smoke. Now I need to make it with about 4 eggplants!...
Posted: 2012-01-18 20:17 by Jess@miniMum     [Delete]

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