A simple home-made cold eggplant spread

[DetlefK]

- eggplants (3 for about 2 portions)
- 1 onion (small or medium, depending on how much you make)
- mayonnaise (1-2 table-spoons per eggplant)
- salt
- pepper






1.
Put the eggplants on a baking-tray. Bake at about 180°C/350°F for about 45 minutes. Then take out, flip, and bake for another 30 minutes. Turn off the oven, keep it closed and let them steam and cool down in the oven.

2.
Once they are lukewarm or so, process the eggplants one by one:
Cut it open, scrape out all the flesh, including the fibers, onto a cutting-board. Chop it finely with a big knife. (This gives a superior texture than simply blending it.) Put it in a bowl.
Repeat for all eggplants.

3.
Season the eggplant-mush with a very finely chopped onion, mayo, salt and pepper. Let it rest for about an hour, so the onion-juices can penetrate into the mix.

Serve as cold spread on bread, together with cheese, cold cuts and stuff like that.



In the fridge, this lasts about a week.

[Diamond_Dog]

1. Sounds delicious. 🙂

[kimbutgar]

2. Is this baba ghanoush like?

[DetlefK]

3. Kind of. But this is one of the european versions.

There's a version with oil instead of mayo. There's a version with finely grated garlic instead of chopped onions...

[Retrograde]

4. Mayo is emulsified oil

usually olive oil, with egg and mustard. I was able to make a taramasalata with cod roe, bread, onions, and oil in a food processor - it emulsified very well. I'm tempted to try this with just olive oil to see how it comes out.

[sir pball]

5. Making it with oil isn't really worth the extra effort IMO

You can do it in a food processor but then it gets so puréed it loses all texture, which is a big part of baba ghanoush. You should do it with a whisk or better yet a wooden spoon, but then you run into the that's-a-lot-of-work wall.

What I usually do, especially in the restaurant, is make a pure olive oil mayo spiked with a lot of lemon and garlic; if you have enough acid the mayo will last a couple of months so it ends up being a surprisingly easy treat - just roast the eggplant and mix it up!