Raw Baba Ghanoush

Let's be honest - People like making/eating Baba Ghanoush because saying Baba Ghanoush is incredibly fun! Mine is adapted from the recipe on RawAmazing. You'll find many variations of Baba Ghanoush on the Net. Essentially, Baba Ghanoush is eggplant with sesame, garlic, lemon.

Baba Ghanoush

Serving: 1/2 cup

Prep work:
Peel the eggplants. Cut roughly and put it overnight in the freezer. Remove from the freezer approximately two hours before you want to begin making Baba Ghanoush. This is to improve the texture of raw eggplants - No one likes eating them raw! As best I know, freezing does not degrade the enzymes in fruits/veggies. So this is still considered raw.

If you're not bothered about the whole raw food thing, then just roast the eggplants over an open flame to get that charred burnt flavor; cool them off; and then blitz them along with the other ingredients.

Ingredients:

• Two medium sized baby eggplants (I used the small Indian variety)
• 1 tablespoon of Tahini
• Juice from half a lemon
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 5-6 cashews (Optional)
• Dash of olive/sesame oil
• Salt to taste

To make:

• In a mixer, blitz all the ingredients till its a smooth paste.
• Serve with crackers

Frozen eggplant being thawed

 

Notice how the texture has changed



Eggplant and Tahini Pizza on Indian Naan Bread

As discussed, here's my version of an eggplant and tahini pizza made atop a day-old Indian naan bread.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 a naan bread
• 1 medium sized baby eggplant/aubergine, sliced into thin discs
• Handful of veggies - peppers, cabbage, spinach etc
• 1 table spoon of Tahini paste
• teaspoon of olive oil
• Pinch of dry basil

To make:
On a sliver of the naan bread, spread the tahini paste all over.

Then, lay some green leafy vegetables, then the peppers and cabbage on top.

Lay the eggplant discs on top.

Drizzle a little olive oil on top along with the basil.

Bake in an oven at 250 degrees celcius for 15-20 minutes.

Servings: 1 sliver of pizza - But be warned that the tahini makes this quite a filling snack/lunch.

Verdict: To be honest, I preferred the earlier pizza I'd made. The eggplant gave it quite a bitter aftertaste. Plus, it wasnt the most portable of lunches -The eggplant discs kept slipping out. Next time, I'll make Baba Ghanoush (simply put, its just tahini mixed with eggplant. Blend it all up to make a paste). And then lay the veggies on top of the Baba Ghanoush paste.