This time of year our eggplant game is seriously over the top. We overwintered some eggplants in the high tunnel and planted many more because we didn’t know how productive the overwintered ones would be. As a result we have an abundant and beautiful array of purple, green, and white eggplant varieties at the ready. Last year we froze them and this year we have begun dehydrating our surplus as well. Still there is nothing better than the flavor of freshly harvested veggies and eggplant is no exception to that rule. So we set out to find a new & delicious recipe to utilize them. We didn’t have to look far. The recipe came to us in fact! A friend of a friend shared with us how she loves Baba Ganoush and I immediately took to Google to see if it was a simple recipe that I could possibly get my family to try. I was intrigued to find the word hummus even associated with eggplant but that is a real good way to describe this dish – an eggplant hummus! It was simple enough and it was a hit with our family and I’m sure it will be with yours too! Here’s how we do Baba Ganoush at Bain Home Gardens!
The Ingredients
- 2 pounds eggplant
- 1/4 cup of tahini
- Oil of choice (we used avocado)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
- Salt
- Parsley
- Tony Catchers
The Prep
We will be roasting the eggplant at a very hot 450 degrees so go ahead an preheat your oven.
Wash your produce and go ahead and chop off the calyxes of the eggplants and chop your parsley too and set it aside.
Prepare a baking sheet and cover with parchment paper.
You may need a mesh strainer and will definitely need a basting brush so shuffle through those cabinets and drawers and pull these tools out along with a measuring cup.
Let’s Cook!
Most Baba Ganoush recipes called for Italian eggplant however that is not what was growing in the garden. We only had the Thai varieties so that is what we used. We are happy to report that because we did we were able to skip a step later on.
Cut your eggplant down the middle, lengthwise. Brush on your oil of choice on the meat side of the eggplant. We used avocado oil because it is what we had on hand however most recipes use extra virgin olive oil for this. After brushing on the oil place eggplant meat side down on parchment paper lined baking sheet. Cook for 30 – 40 minutes depending on the size of your eggplant. Our Thai Long Green Eggplant actually could have been removed about 10 minuets earlier than the Purple Ribbed variety.
As seen in the images above the skin of the eggplant becomes very loose and is really easy to peel off after they come out of the oven. Just be sure to let them cool about 10 minutes before trying that!
So a couple of recipes online suggested taking the meat out of the skins and placing into a mesh strainer to remove the naturally occurring water that is in the eggplant. The suggestion was to leave in the strainer (of course with a bowl below) for upwards of 10 minutes stirring as needed to help the process along. We did this for 5 minutes and after NOTHING came out we continued with the process. It could be that Italian eggplant has a higher water content than these Thai varieties. Not sure but moving right along…
At this point all left to do is to combine your remaining ingredients. Some may choose to do this by hand but I like to make use of my power tools and I used my blender. I added the eggplant, garlic, lemon juice, tahini, and avocado oil to the blender. I blended until smooth which didn’t take long ( 30 seconds or so). After blending I tasted the mixture so I could determine how much salt and Tony Catchers I wanted to add. I should mention that the recipe called for smoked paprika but seldom buy paprika so we just added a little spice with the Tony Catchers. After seasoning to taste we blended once more to evenly distribute seasoning and viola – done! Garnish with parsley when you serve. We forgot to harvest it and harvested it the next day and ate with the left overs.
How you choose to enjoy this hummus like dip is your choice – with chips, on pita bread, warm or cold – the options are endless. Our son was eating it by the spoonful with nothing at all! I guess Baba Ganoush rewally is all its cracked up to be!
For a short video of us making this dish click here. Here is a challenge for you: Try this dish with someone who does not like the flavor of eggplant and without telling them it is eggplant see if they like it. Let us know what happens! Happy cooking – from our family to yours!
