For the longest time I thought that Baba Ghanoush was bland, drab eggplant mush with the consistency of baby food, but last summer I encountered a stupendous rendition of the dish that made me rethink everything I had ever known about baba ghanoush. It is that baba ghanoush that I have been striving to recreate here, and hopefully some day I’ll get there, but this was an excellent first step. Two things in particular stood out to me about that dish – the rich, smokey flavor of the eggplant and the integrity of flavor that comes from keeping the eggplant whole. The moment the baba ghanoush hits a blender or food processor the complexity of flavors you have developed in the careful preparation, smoking, and marinating of the eggplant get muddled and lost leaving you with a banal pile of grey goop. Either way, baba ghanoush will never be the most aesthetically pleasing of dishes, so it’s probably best not to also strip it of its flavor.
Ingredients:
- 4 Eggplants
- Zest from 1 Lemon
- juice from 1/2 a Lemon
- 2 cloves of minced Garlic
- 3 tsp Olive Oil
- 2 tbsp chopped Parsley
- Salt
Directions:
- Score your eggplants, and set them on a hot grill.
- Rotate them every 10 – 15 minutes until they are fully cooked through and have a deep, smokey smell.
- Let your eggplants cool off until you can handle them.
- Scoop out the eggplant flesh from the chard skins, and place it in a colander to drain for about an hour.
- Once your eggplant has been sufficiently drained, stir it together with the remaining ingredients.
- Set the baba ghanoush aside to marinate for at least a hour before serving.
The Ephemeral Bee 