Eggplant and Garlic Dip

In our family, there is a constant great debate. Which is the better dip, the olive dip or the eggplant and garlic dip? As the dips are placed on the table and everyone calmly begins putting a little bit of each on a piece of bread, grumbles start forming. "Well, everyone, I guess we all know now that olive dip is clearly superior..." states one person at the table. Another shouts, "Woah, hold on. Eggplant and garlic dip is clearly superior..."

As the heat at the table builds and food begins flying through the air, you dive under the table. All around you are the dark remnants of a food war. A little eggplant soldier yells at you, "Captain, what should we do? The enemies are getting closer!" You crawl back towards the trenches. Bullets of olive and garlic fly above your head. You duck and "roll" and "dip" (puns proudly intended).

To be completely honest, we love both dips and so the great eggplant and garlic dip experiment began. We went to the supermarket and had a decision between large Australian-grown eggplants or small lebanese eggplants. Which should we pick? The recipe called for 1 kilogram of eggplant which equates to either about 10 lebanese eggplants or two large Australian grown ones... We pile into our shopping basket 20 lebanese eggplants and proceed to the check out. Why 20 you ask? No idea. The server looks at us strangely, what could they possibly need with this many eggplants! A few hours later, we've roasted the eggplants and garlic and mixed them into some balsamic vinegar (not the optimal choice)... Not great, not great at all! The texture was super wet, slightly slimey and very disappointing! So we start throwing in mayonnaise, flour, eggs and cream cheese... OK, we went a little too far in our hopes of saving this recipe. So we scratched it.

Then we found it. This recipe is just like how it was growing up. It's got a bite of garlic, the smooth taste of eggplant and a slight herbiness to it which we really love! Also, it only requires one large eggplant! We really hope you like it! The recipe originally comes from Mimi Bobeck on food.com, but we've made adjustments to the cooking method and ratios. Let us know what you think!

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Eggplant and Garlic Dip
 
Servings                          
8
 
Prep Time:       00:15    
Cook Time:      00:45
 
Main Ingredients 

1 Large eggplant
1/3 Cup of tahini
1/2 Teaspoon of salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil
3 minced garlic cloves
1/4 Cup lemon juice
1/4 Teaspoon of ground cumin
1 Tablespoon of parsley

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius (non-fan forced).
2. Poke the eggplant all over with a fork and put on a tray with baking paper. Put this into the oven for 40 minutes.
3. Remove the eggplant from the oven and allow to cool.
4. In a food processor, we used a stab mixer, add the tahini, the lemon juice, the cumin, the garlic, the parsley and the salt.
5. Remove the inner flesh from the eggplant. You don't want to use the skin. Add this to the food processor and blend this all together for two minutes.
6. Transfer to a dip bowl.
7. Drizzle the olive oil over the top of the dip (if a tablespoon is too much, use less).
8. Put in the fridge and serve chilled.

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