Dinner Tonight: Baba Ghanoush
Because I spend most of day on the road, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Once I’ve exhausted more NPR than anyone should stomach in one day, I move on to different stations and topics, and obviously on to a few about food. The best one I’ve found so far is KCRW’s Good Food, though it doesn’t really make much sense why I’d find it so engaging. The Market Report provides in depth news on sunny Santa Monica’s latest crops, not my dreary Midwestern truth. And the restaurant reviews about ethnic eateries around L.A. don’t help me one bit. But I listen because all this seems to interest me anyway, and because I’ll occasionally run into a quick little recipe that seems too perfect to be true.
This one is for baba ghanoush. It requires an iron skillet and a fork. No salting of the eggplant, no drying of the eggplant. Hell, they don’t even want you to wash the eggplant, because that would introduce water to the pan that might steam it. It takes all of 30 minutes, and comes out luscious and smoky. Best part, they call for those big honking eggplants that grow around here.
If you have any food podcasts to recommend, let me know!
Baba Ghanoush
- serves 4 -
Ingredients
1 large eggplant
2 cloves garlic, minced
juice of half a lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper
Procedure
1. Place an iron skillet over high heat. Let it get smoking-hot before placing the unwashed eggplant on top.
2. Cook the eggplant for about 10 minutes before giving it a quarter turn. Cook for another 5-10 minutes and give it another quarter turn, and so on until the eggplant is very tender, about thirty minutes.
3. Remove the eggplant and cut in half. Scoop the innards out into a bowl. Toss in the minced garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and mix together with fork. You can also toss everything in a food processor and blend until combined. Season with salt and pepper.
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4 Comments:
There's always NPR's Splendid Table, if you haven't had too much NPR already.
Keely at 5:48PM on 10/17/07
I can't stomach Good Food. On the other hand Evan Kleiman's exaggerated delivery (barely suppressed delight) and even worse, Laura Avery's screech, soften the tender disappointment of Union Square vs Hollywood or Santa Monica.
dbird at 9:12PM on 10/17/07
I love KCRW, and want to like Good Food, but just can't. I've heard a few good travel podcasts on the UK Independent's website that usually involve some food. http://travel.independent.co.uk/article1603844.ece
SMDNY at 9:55AM on 10/18/07
You gotta check out: You look nice today. It's not food related, but it will be a comic relief to your NPR drag-on-athons.
kazoinker at 5:36PM on 11/13/08