Today, my husband came home a little earlier than I expected. While he played with our baby daughter, I concocted an easy dip for them to munch on before dinner. First, I roasted an eggplant. I let the eggplant cool and gathered the pulp. Then I mashed the mixture with the back of a fork, which was a reasonable substitute for a good arm workout (I’m finally back to my gym routine. Yay!). Lastly, I incorporated whipped cream for a light, almost airy eggplant dip.
I served the dip with warm pita bread and Persian cucumber sticks. If you’d like a fancier look, you could use it as a filling in phyllo dough cups or pre-baked puff pastry tartlets. Either would be an elegant item to serve at parties.
1. Info for Roasted Whipped Eggplant Dip Recipe
- Cook Time: unavailable
- Total Time: unavailable
- Servings: 6
- Calories: unavailable
2. Ingredients for Roasted Whipped Eggplant Dip Recipe
- 1 eggplant
- 1 clove garlic, halved lengthwise
- 3 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, chopped
- 2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
- 2 tablespoons green onions, chopped
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice, freshly squeezed
3. Directions:
3.1 Roasting the eggplant
Stem and wash the eggplant and pat dry. Place a grill on your stove and char the skin of the eggplant. It may take a long time, about 20-25 minutes. Wrap in aluminum foil. Let cool for about 10 minutes until you can handle it without discomfort. The skin will come right off. Seed it and gather the eggplant pulp.
3.2 Cooking the eggplant pulp
In a pan, heat the olive oil. Add the garlic. Cook about 3-4 minutes, until the garlic is golden on the outside and soft inside. Add the eggplant pulp. Mash the garlic and eggplant using a potato masher or a fork until all the eggplant mixture is puréed. Add ground coriander, cumin powder, turmeric powder and red chili powder. Stir for about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat. Add 1 tablespoon each of green onions, mint and cilantro. Season with salt and drizzle with lemon juice. Let the eggplant cool completely.
3.3 Assembly
Using a hand-held mixer, whip the heavy cream (at low speed) for 2-3 minutes until creamy and smooth. Add salt, then increase the speed of the mixer and whisk for 3 minutes.
Add 2 tablespoons of whipped cream to the eggplant mixture. Mix well using a spatula, then gently fold in the rest of the whipped cream in stages. Make sure the color is uniform. Adjust seasoning. Add more salt if necessary.
Garnish with mint leaves, cilantro and the rest of the green onions.
Serve at room temperature with warm pita bread cut into wedges, baby carrots, celery or cucumber.
Bon appétit!
4. Tips and advices:
- When a recipe requires gathering eggplant pulp, it’s preferable to use a small eggplant, which has fewer seeds.
