Baba Ghanoush

Charred whole over a bare flame until the skin blisters black, then bound smooth with tahini.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 3 large aubergines
• 4 tablespoons tahini, well stirred
• juice of 1½ lemons
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste with salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• salt

to serve

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• a handful of parsley, chopped
• pomegranate seeds

Method

1. THE AUBERGINES ARE CHARRED WHOLE OVER A BARE FLAME UNTIL THE SKIN BLISTERS BLACK, and the smoke that gets into the flesh is the dish. Straight onto a gas ring or a grill bed, turned with tongs, for fifteen or twenty minutes until the skin is split, blistered and genuinely carbonised all over and the whole thing has collapsed. Roasted in an oven instead, an aubergine goes perfectly soft and sweet and tastes of nothing but aubergine, and the dip is bland in a way no amount of lemon or garlic will fix. There is no substitute for the flame.
2. THE FLESH IS SCOOPED OUT AND DRAINED, AND THE DRAINING MATTERS. Split, the flesh lifted out with a spoon, and left in a sieve for twenty minutes so the bitter dark liquid runs off. Skipped, the dip is thin and faintly acrid and cannot be thickened without more tahini than it should have.
3. NO BLACK SKIN GOES IN. Carbonised skin is bitter, not smoky -- the smoke is already in the flesh. A fleck or two will not matter; a scraping of it will ruin the bowl.
4. IT IS BOUND WITH TAHINI AND MASHED, NOT BLENDED. Four tablespoons, stirred thoroughly in its jar first because a separated jar gives either oil or stiff paste and neither behaves. Then the flesh is mashed with a fork or chopped with a knife to a rough-smooth paste. A blender turns it pale, aerated and gluey -- the colour change alone tells you it has gone wrong.
5. THE TAHINI AND LEMON GO IN TOGETHER AND IT WILL SEIZE FIRST. Tahini stiffens and looks curdled the moment acid hits it. It is not ruined: it loosens again as the aubergine's own moisture works through, and a spoonful of cold water will finish the job.
6. IT IS SERVED AT ROOM TEMPERATURE WITH A WELL OF OIL. Spread in a shallow bowl, the back of a spoon dragged round to make a channel, and oil pooled in it. Cold from the fridge the tahini sets firm and the smoke flattens.
7. The aubergines charred WHOLE over a BARE FLAME, turned, 15 to 20 MINUTES, until the skin is split and genuinely carbonised all over and the flesh has collapsed.
8. Left until cool enough to handle, then split and the flesh SCOOPED OUT. NO black skin included.
9. The flesh DRAINED in a sieve 20 MINUTES.
10. The tahini STIRRED THOROUGHLY in its jar.
11. The flesh MASHED with a fork or chopped with a knife -- NOT blended.
12. The tahini, lemon juice and garlic paste worked in. It will SEIZE and then loosen.
13. The olive oil and salt beaten in, and a spoonful of cold water if it is still stiff.
14. TESTED: it should be beige-grey and taste distinctly of smoke. Pale and fluffy means it was blended; sweet and mild means the aubergines were roasted rather than charred.
15. Spread in a shallow bowl with a well of oil, parsley and pomegranate seeds. Served at ROOM temperature.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Lebanon · All recipes