Baba ghanoush and sesame oil crackers
This is what happens when I go crazy on eggplant at the farmer's market and forget to buy chips or bread. (The wine is, of course, optional.)
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Recipes (with almost step-by-step pictures) under the cuts. Please note: for the baba ghanoush, the ingredient proportions is almost entirely a "to taste" thing. I measured very, very little.
Baba Ghanoush
Ingredients:
-Eggplant (I used a medium-sized eggplant and two little ones that I got at the farmer's market. You can also do it with one of those big purple globe eggplants. Try to aim for enough eggplant to make two cups or so of cooked mush.)
-1/3 cup tahini (or to taste)
-A couple table spoons of olive oil (or to taste)
-Lemon juice from 1/2 of a big lemon (or to taste)
-four cloves minced garlic (or to taste)
-salt (to taste)
1. First, roast some eggplant. I do this by pricking them with a fork and sticking them in a ratty old pie pan and putting them in the oven under a high broil until the skin is blackened and the eggplant is super soft. Depending on the size of the eggplant, it can take half an hour or forty minutes, but the timing is notat all precise. It's very difficult to over-cook eggplant when you're aiming for an end-state of, essentially, mush. The skin protects the flesh from burning.
One way to determine doneness: If you forget to prick the skin, the eggplant is ready at about the time when it starts exploding, as I discovered this afternoon:
2. Let the eggplant cool so you can handle it comfortably. It will shrivel as it does, so even if it maintains some shape when it's hot, it will become a pretty ugly wizened mess as it approaches room temperature. Split open the skin with a knife and scoop out the guts into a bowl. The first picture below shows an empty husk that has been emptied, and a split eggplant that has not yet been emptied.
This next picture shows how the mush should look in a bowl. To achieve this texture, I recommend beating it well with a fork or a whisk or a potato masher. The idea is to make the mushy cooked eggplant into a very evenly textured mush.
3. Stir in everything else. Taste as you go. Make many times and determine your favorite proportions. In my experience the tahini is slightly overpowering until you add the lemon and garlic and salt, and then suddenly everything comes together. The final mixture looks something like this:
Sesame Oil Crackers
These actually didn't turn out particularly interesting, but they're a useful baba ghanoush-conveyance vehicle when you don't have much in the house.
Ingredients:
-2 cups flour
-1 tsp salt
-1 tbsp olive oil
-1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
-1/2 cup water
1. Sift together the flour and salt
2. In a thin stream, stirring all the while, add the oils. Then do the same with the water. Stir (or knead with your hands) until the dough forms a smooth ball.
3. Roll out the dough on parchment paper until it's very, very thin. You'll need to do it in two stages, as one half of the recipe covers almost an entire cookies sheet. Roll until you think it's too thin, and then roll more. Score it (I use a pastry wheel, because pretty) and bake it for 15 minutes at 400 degrees, or until it's brown. Rotate halfway through for even baking. It's done when everything's a lovely golden brown.
Note: I didn't roll thin enough and I don't think I baked long enough. The color you're aiming for is not the color of the central crackers, which were still chewy and tough, but rather the color of the edge pieces, which were delightfully crispy.
4. Take them out of the oven and let them cool. When they're cool, you can break them up into their component parts, which is a lot of fun.
5. Take pictures! I really like how this one came out. (The face is actually a vase, where we're keeping our basil.)
\
Recipes (with almost step-by-step pictures) under the cuts. Please note: for the baba ghanoush, the ingredient proportions is almost entirely a "to taste" thing. I measured very, very little.
Baba Ghanoush
Ingredients:
-Eggplant (I used a medium-sized eggplant and two little ones that I got at the farmer's market. You can also do it with one of those big purple globe eggplants. Try to aim for enough eggplant to make two cups or so of cooked mush.)
-1/3 cup tahini (or to taste)
-A couple table spoons of olive oil (or to taste)
-Lemon juice from 1/2 of a big lemon (or to taste)
-four cloves minced garlic (or to taste)
-salt (to taste)
1. First, roast some eggplant. I do this by pricking them with a fork and sticking them in a ratty old pie pan and putting them in the oven under a high broil until the skin is blackened and the eggplant is super soft. Depending on the size of the eggplant, it can take half an hour or forty minutes, but the timing is notat all precise. It's very difficult to over-cook eggplant when you're aiming for an end-state of, essentially, mush. The skin protects the flesh from burning.
One way to determine doneness: If you forget to prick the skin, the eggplant is ready at about the time when it starts exploding, as I discovered this afternoon:
2. Let the eggplant cool so you can handle it comfortably. It will shrivel as it does, so even if it maintains some shape when it's hot, it will become a pretty ugly wizened mess as it approaches room temperature. Split open the skin with a knife and scoop out the guts into a bowl. The first picture below shows an empty husk that has been emptied, and a split eggplant that has not yet been emptied.
This next picture shows how the mush should look in a bowl. To achieve this texture, I recommend beating it well with a fork or a whisk or a potato masher. The idea is to make the mushy cooked eggplant into a very evenly textured mush.
3. Stir in everything else. Taste as you go. Make many times and determine your favorite proportions. In my experience the tahini is slightly overpowering until you add the lemon and garlic and salt, and then suddenly everything comes together. The final mixture looks something like this:
Sesame Oil Crackers
These actually didn't turn out particularly interesting, but they're a useful baba ghanoush-conveyance vehicle when you don't have much in the house.
Ingredients:
-2 cups flour
-1 tsp salt
-1 tbsp olive oil
-1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
-1/2 cup water
1. Sift together the flour and salt
2. In a thin stream, stirring all the while, add the oils. Then do the same with the water. Stir (or knead with your hands) until the dough forms a smooth ball.
3. Roll out the dough on parchment paper until it's very, very thin. You'll need to do it in two stages, as one half of the recipe covers almost an entire cookies sheet. Roll until you think it's too thin, and then roll more. Score it (I use a pastry wheel, because pretty) and bake it for 15 minutes at 400 degrees, or until it's brown. Rotate halfway through for even baking. It's done when everything's a lovely golden brown.
Note: I didn't roll thin enough and I don't think I baked long enough. The color you're aiming for is not the color of the central crackers, which were still chewy and tough, but rather the color of the edge pieces, which were delightfully crispy.
4. Take them out of the oven and let them cool. When they're cool, you can break them up into their component parts, which is a lot of fun.
5. Take pictures! I really like how this one came out. (The face is actually a vase, where we're keeping our basil.)