Baba ganoush

Friday, August 22, 2008

Unless it was in the form of Parmesan hoagie, or otherwise battered and deep-fried, smothered in sauce or cheese, or roasted and hidden with a million other ingredients, I disliked eggplant. I never purchased it in its natural state, substituting squash if a recipe called for it, and couldn’t understand what so many people tasted in it. 

When I joined a CSA three years ago, this eggplant avoidance couldn’t continue.  Eggplant, in several different varieties, started showing up at the farm:  long skinny pale purple Asian eggplant; fat, squat deep purple Italian eggplant; bulbous, variegated striped heirloom eggplant; creamy, white, tender eggplant. 

Yet, although I couldn’t get away from them as they made a home in my kitchen, I realized that I actually could, still avoid them.  The first couple eggplants ended up in the compost pile, a bit deflated and wrinkled from two weeks in the fridge.  This went on for a bit until, eventually, I decided that I’d have to at least attempt preparing one into something edible.  I mean, this sort of challenge was supposed to be one of the benefits of belonging to a Community Supported Agriculture program, right?  You know, “having the opportunity to try new things” and all that jazz.  So, I embarked on a mission to make peace with the eggplant.

Stir fries are a staple in my house, especially during the spring and summer months, so this seemed like a logical place to start.  I pulled an eggplant out of the crisper along with some other in-season veggies, chopped them, stir fried them, added a bit of teryaki sauce and served it atop brown rice.  The eggplant was mushy.  It was slimy.  It was disgusting.  I picked it out.

Next up was the grill.  We love throwing a pile of fresh vegetables—carrots, corn, squash, onions, tomatoes—on the grill, dabbing them lightly with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and eating them outside on the porch with a side of hummus or grilled tempeh.  Surely, I thought, eggplant will taste good off the grill—everyone raves about grilled eggplant!  So, I added a sliced eggplant, and served it mixed in with the other veggies.  The eggplant was mushy.  It was slimy.  It was disgusting.  I picked it out.

I thought a sandwich would end the nonsense.  Anything smothered in sauce and hugged by freshly-baked bread can’t be wrong, right?  I lightly fried some slices of eggplant, added a bit of tomato sauce and place it into a yummy sliced bun from the local bakery.  I made a fresh, crisp salad to compliment and balance the sandwich.  The eggplant was mushy.  It was slimy.  It was disgusting.  I picked it out.

Feeling slightly defeated, my determination waning, I happened to mention my eggplant efforts to a neighbor one night while we were chatting over our shared railing from our respective porches.  She, on her Adirondack chair, looking over her gorgeous, wild and native front garden, sipping tea; me, damp with sweat from living with no air conditioning during the latest heat wave, limbs hanging limply from a thrift store swing. 

She:  “Well, did you salt it?”
Me: ...
She:  “You have to salt it—you always salt eggplant.”
Me: “Salt...?”
She:  “Yes. Dice it, salt it, then roast it with other vegetables in the oven on a sheet of parchment paper.”
Me:  “Parchment paper...?”

In the end, she lent me her roll of parchment paper and gave me explicit instructions, which I dutifully followed:  dice the eggplant, put it into a bowl, sprinkle a little bit of salt on it and stir it up; let stand.  Preheat oven to 350-degrees, cut up other vegetables, combine everything, along with fresh chopped herbs, and spread onto some parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and roast them for 15 minutes.  While that was roasting, I also made some stirfry, just in case this whole salting thing was bogus.  In the end, the roasted eggplant was… not so bad. 

Actually, it was pretty good.  I even blogged about it, though I wouldn’t say I was exactly enchanted by, let alone had made peace with, eggplant.  I made it through that first, and then last year’s CSA season by dicing and roasting, but also by always making sure my sister had first dibs (we split our share).  I still wasn’t in love with eggplant, and preferred to leave it rather than take it. 

Naturally, once again, eggplant started arriving a few weeks ago.  And naturally, once again, I pawned them off or “forgot” about them until they were no longer worthy of more than being shipped to the compost pile.  Although I can get behind the roasted vegetables, I much prefer to consume fresh produce either raw, steamed or stir fried.  I didn’t like the idea of roasting everything just so that I could tolerate the eggplant.  I needed a new strategy. 

I thought on it for a bit, read about eggplant in my From Asparagus to Zucchini book, then thought some more.  I decided that it was really the texture that I couldn’t stand about eggplant.  How could I take that mushy texture and format it so that it was pleasing to my palette?  Could I add something starchy to give it some more substance?  Or maybe something creamy to give it a smoother taste?  And then it dawned on me—baba ganoush!  Of course!

I searched online for some recipes, settling on this one, from Food Network:

Babaganoush
2006, Ellie Krieger, All rights reserved; Show:  Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger; Episode:  Thrill of the Grill.

1 large eggplant (about 1 pound)
1 glove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, plus more for garnish
2 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Prick eggplant with a fork and place on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Bake the eggplant until it is soft inside, about 20 minutes. Alternatively, grill the eggplant over a gas grill, rotating it around until the skin is completely charred, about 10 minutes. Let the eggplant cool. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise, drain off the liquid, and scoop the pulp into a food processor. Process the eggplant until smooth and transfer to a medium bowl.

On a cutting board, work garlic and 1/4 teaspoon salt together with the flat side of a knife, until it forms a paste. Add the garlic-salt mixture to the eggplant. Stir in the parsley, tahini, and lemon juice. Season with more salt, to taste. Garnish with additional parsley.

Both parsley and garlic were in recent share pickups and therefore available in the kitchen.  I also had leftover lemon from my mom’s wedding and tahini from a hummus recipe.  Clearly, it was fate.  I would finally, after all these years, meet an eggplant that I couldn’t resist.

And I couldn’t!  It was divine!  My boyfriend and I devoured the bit I made in two sittings.  I declared all future incoming eggplant baba ganoush-destined, vowed to always stock fresh pita for prime ganoush-noshing, and haven’t looked back since. 

Some other baba gnough recipes I’m hoping to try:

• FatFreeVegan’s cumin-sprinkled version.
• Bon Appétit’s (at epicurious) with olive oil.
• About.com’s “eggplant hummus” version with chickpeas.
• Mastercook’s (at RecipeSource) with tons of extras like sweet red peppers, chili powder and cilantro.
• RecipeZaar’s no food processor required version, served with olives.

Whatever kind you try, I’ve learned that fresh eggplants are key; older ones can lead to a bitter baba ganoush batch that is nearly impossible to salvage.  Be sure to drain all the liquid off after roasting the eggplant, and if you think your eggplant might be beyond its freshest, rinse it under running water.