Everyone back home except my mom and me hates eggplants. We have wonderful recipes dedicated to eggplants to motivate eggplant haters and every guest who visits us who hated eggplants bear testimony to how their aversion turned to passion having taste the eggplant delicacies we have prepared. My hubby is a recent convert and is an eggplant devout off lately. This version of baba ganoush is something I picked up from Food safari and then tweaked it a bit here and there. I have always loved the musical chime when you pronounce 'baba ganoush' though I never liked baba ganoush as a kid. But over the past few months with our bbq cookouts and get together's I have been frantically hunting for dips and sauces recipes and that's what led me to experiment with baba ganoush. I loved the char grilled flavour of the eggplant and I guess I would prefer my baingan bharta cooked on the bbq :) Moroccan version of this recipe recommends pomegranate molasses , since I could not find them here I used pomegranate fruit for garnish. it lightens the drab baba ganoush with its sparkling red colour. So here's a dip that's easy to make even when you are cooking outdoors or busy attending your meats on the skewers.
Ingredients for Pomegranate Baba Ganoush
Eggplant- 1 ( large)
Tahini paste- 2 tbsp
Olive oil- 3 tbsp
Garlic cloves- 4
Salt- to taste
Pomegranate seeds- a handful
Cilantro/ Parsley- 1 sprig
Lemon juice- 2 tsp
Directions
I never buy tahini from stores. You can save a lot of money if you make your own tahini paste and its very easy. Toast some white sesame seeds ( I used 6 tbsp) and when it has cooled down process it with 1/4 cup olive oil and 1 tsp salt. Yep, that's exactly the same stuff you buy in bottles for 200 bucks. Grill the eggplant. I did mine on the bbq grill because we had a bbq cookout.
Peel the skin off the eggplant once it has cooled down. mash the eggplant with a fork and add minced garlic, tahini paste, salt and lime juice. Finally add the olive oil and garnish with cilantro and pomegranate seeds. That's pomegranate baba ganoush for you and is ideal with hummus, pita bread and kebabs. If you are a vegetarian try this with pita bread and falafel.
And that's our loving Don playing on our bed. His life has changed completely with Sarah's arrival, he is now confined to our balcony and I feel bad for him. Hopefully when we shift to our new house, he will feel a lot better, we can then give him the terrace so that he can run and play, till then he remains alive in our pics from his good old days.
