*Spoiler alert: the only thing that made me call this recipe South TX style is that I put together the baba ghanoush in a molcajete. Otherwise, this is a pretty standard recipe and a great way to use eggplant.
I planted 1 single Black Beauty eggplant plant back in October and ended up getting about 20 nice fruits from it from Early December to mid January. This was my first time growing eggplant and I plan to do more this Spring. I think everybody should – there’s still time! So easy and the fresh eggplant tastes amazing.
As my fruit started to appear and ripen, I’d harvest 1 or 2, rough chop, and roast the eggplants and add to pizzas or pasta sauces or salads. So good! My final harvest was brought on by the freeze we had in January. I picked all the remaining eggplants before the freeze, some large and tender, some small and not totally ripe. The plan was to make baba ghanoush, which takes quite a few eggplants.
It was raining, and I didn’t want to build a fire outside, so I charred the eggplants directly on my gas stove burner. Traditionally, you’d do this directly on hot coals. Burning them is the key to the flavor. Once charred black, I drizzled with a little olive oil and finished in the oven. This took about 40min at 400 degrees until they were deflated and cooked through.
I let them cool a bit so they’d be easy to handle, then sliced them open and scooped out the flesh with a spoon, discarding the skins.
Then I squeezed the juice of 1 whole lemon and added a few cloves of garlic, a splash of olive oil, a pinch of paprika, and a pinch of coarse salt to my molcajete and ground it to a smooth paste.
Next I added all the eggplant flesh and about 1 tablespoon of tahini and folded it all together, mashing the eggplant until it was all incorporated but still a bit chunky.
That’s it! Delicious baba ghanoush! Add salt and more olive oil to taste and sprinkle with paprika to serve. We didn’t have any pita bread, so one more thing that makes this South TX style is that we ate it with HEB flour tortillas 🙂
-Jesse
