Recipe of the Week: Baba Ghanoush

As I post my 5th recipe of 2011, I realize that 3 of my 5 recipes are dips. I think this says something about me, I like to snack. I love dipping gluten-free crackers, pretzels and veggies into various things. I even spread dips on bread and eat that as a sandwich at times. There are a ton of recipes for Baba Ghanoush (also spelled ganosh or ganouj) out there so I read a few and picked the easiest one from AllRecipes.com.

I love AllRecipes.com. Just type in your ingredients that you want (even ones you don't want) and hit enter. A list of recipes containing your ingredients will pop up. This is a really fun way to get inspired. I already knew I wanted to make baba ghanoush, so this just helped me find the rest of the ingredients.


Baba Ghanoush from AllRecipes.com

Ingredients
1 eggplant
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup tahini
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.
2. Place eggplant on baking sheet, and make holes in the skin with a fork. Roast it for 30 to 40 minutes, turning occasionally, or until soft. Remove from oven, and place into a large bowl of cold water. Remove from water, and peel skin off.
3. Place eggplant, lemon juice, tahini, sesame seeds, and garlic in an electric blender, and puree. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer eggplant mixture to a medium size mixing bowl, and slowly mix in olive oil. Refrigerate for 3 hours before serving.

My Modifications

• I only used the juice of one lemon since my eggplant was on the smaller side
• I used three cloves of garlic since I love garlic.
• I added the olive oil directly into the food processor because I was feeling lazy.

I liked this dip and its now another one I will keep on my radar. The only annoying part of the recipe was having to constantly scrape down the sides of the food processor. The mix all settled below the blades so I was scraping and pulsing a few times in order to get the consistency I wanted. I really liked the flavor and realized most things with lemon, garlic, and tahini taste good to me. Must be my Mediterranean roots. :-)