I’ve being curious about baba ghanoush since when I listened to BABAGANOUSH by Madame. The first time I made it cooking the eggplant in the home oven, but it didn’t come out good. So I’ve found this article on Seriouseats.com and managed to make a great baba ghanoush with very low effort
The recipe is available on the website, I’ll just share some thoughts.
Roasting the eggplant was the key for the recipe. Luckily I have an outdoor gas barbecue, and I roasted the eggplant for 35 minutes at about 200/250°C However, the articles doesn’t mention this, but you really need to make some cuts on the eggplant skin otherwise it will likely explode due to water turning into steam too quickly. It actually happened to me, but it didn’t turn into separate pieces, so I was still able to cook it
Unlike the article’s recipe, I used mint instead of parsley, mostly because I had the impression that mint was more “traditional”. I think it combined really really good, and together with lemon juice greatly balanced the highly smoky flavour of the roasted eggplants.
I don’t know if this is common knowledge, however recipes as baba ghanoush or hummus as well seem to taste better if you eat them only after letting them cool down in the fridge for a while. I made baba ghanoush yesterday, and right after making it, it tasted really good but the smoky flavour mostly covered the eggplant taste. I eat it again today and I find that the different flavours are much more detectable, so if you can, try to cook it a couple of hours before serving, I think it is really worth it
Thanks for sharing your insights. I don't know much about baba ganoush, but I am planning on making it in two weeks for an Egyptian themed menu using this recipe.