Baba Ganoush

Have you ever heard of baba ganoush before??  It's a very interesting, yet very yummy eggplant dip.  I had never, ever tried it before making it on Sunday.  It ended up being wonderfully delicious, albeit a little different and weird at first!  Eggplants are definitely some of the weirdest veggies out there.  At the bottom of this page is a link to the printable version, as well as some nutritional information.

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Baba Ganoush-Orignial recipe from The Little Ferraro Kitchen

 Our ingredients for this are eggplants, garlic, paprika, cumin, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, and tahini.  Have you ever had tahini?  Me either until Sunday!  It's a sesame seed paste.

First, you want to wash your eggplant, and cut them lengthwise.

You also want to cut the top off of an entire head of garlic.  My garlic was starting to grow sprouts, some people would toss their garlic at this point, however, I used it anyway.

Lay your eggplant on a sheet of foil...

And wrap them up in foil.  You also want to wrap up the garlic in foil as well.  Put it on a baking sheet and slide it in the oven.  It doesn't take long until it will fill your entire house with a lovely garlicky smell!

Gross little suckers aren't they?!  Take a spoon and scrape your eggplant out.  You don't want any of the skin though, so be careful.  Scoop out the flesh and add it to your food processor, or blender.  You can also probably use a hand mixer, kitchen aid, or by hand with some elbow grease.

Anyone out there roast garlic before?  This is what happens, it turns into almost a paste.  You just squeeze the entire thing and it just gooshes out.  Because it's roasted it has a much milder flavor, not as harsh and strong as fresh garlic.  Just squeeze it in with the eggplant.

You'll want to shake your tahini, and add it to the garlic and eggplant.  This stuff is very interesting!  It tastes kind of like peanut butter, but more sesame-y.  We had a heck of a time finding it.  It wasn't at walmart, and when we got to our local Sunfresh, we didn't see it on the ethnic isle either.  In our grocery store there was ethnic foods on one side, and olives, pickles, and dressings on the other.  The tahini ended up being with the salad dressing.  So in case you decide to make this, you may have to do some searching for it!

I did this at my moms, so I just took my hand cranked food processor, this is everything, including the lemon juice, and spices, waiting to be processed!

Here is the final dip.  You put it in a bowl, drizzle it with a little olive oil, and sprinkle with paprika.

Like I said, this is a very interesting flavor.  When I first put it in my mouth, I was dismayed.  When it first hit my tongue, I didn't taste anything.  Then I started tasting everything!  It's very garlicky, not spicy, fairly creamy, and sort of earthy because of the tahini. I was very surprised that Rob really enjoyed this as well, though not as much as me.

Have you ever had baba ganoush before?