Baba Ganoush

 Baba Ganoush

 

By Namit Kathoria

 

Preparation time: 20 min

Cooking time: 40-50 min

 

Serves 4-6 people.

Ingredients:

4 large/6 medium sized aubergines

Olive oil for baking plus ⅓ cup for the baba ganoush mixture

½ teaspoon sea salt and some more for the cooking procedure

Juice of 4 lemons (include the fibre)

5-6 large garlic cloves grated

¾ cup wholegrain tahini

Small handful of fresh coriander/fresh parsley chopped

1 ¼ teaspoon cumin powder

 

Garnish with some more fresh parsley, sweet paprika and pomegranate seeds (optional)

Serve with warm wholegrain pitta bread pieces (or any other wholegrain bread sliced), salad or with sliced vegetables

 

Preparation:

1.      Preheat the oven to 180° C.

2.      Slice or half the aubergines. Sprinkle some of the sea salt on top and place in one or two large sieves for about 15 minutes to drain out any excess liquid.

3.      Place the cut aubergines onto one or two well oiled large baking dishes. Drizzle some more sea salt on top as well as some olive oil. Slit the aubergines, grate the garlic and put the grated garlic into the slits. Put some more olive oil onto the slits so that the garlic does not burn. Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes until the aubergine is nice and soft.

4.      Whilst the aubergine is baking, make up the rest of the mixture. Take a large bowl and put in the olive oil, the lemon juice with the fibre, the wholegrain tahini, the salt, the cumin powder, some chopped parsley or chopped coriander and mix well.

5.      When the aubergine is cooked, remove it from the oven and mash with a fork keeping the peel on. Add the aubergine into the bowl with the tahini mixture from step 4 as well as any liquid that has started to accumulate at the bottom of the baking dish. Stir through thoroughly.

6.      Taste and see if you need to add in any more cumin, salt, parsley/coriander, tahini or lemon juice.

7.      Once the taste is to your liking, garnish with some more fresh parsley, some sweet paprika and some pomegranate seeds if you want to. Serve with wholegrain pitta bread, other wholegrain bread, salad or sliced vegetables such as peppers, carrots or cucumber.

Did you know?

We keep the peel on the aubergine in this version of the recipe. Traditionally the peel is taken off the aubergine for baba ganoush, but we are keeping it on here as a large proportion of the nutrients are actually to be found in the peel itself.

Where does your protein come from?

It comes from the wholegrain tahini. Tahini contains sesame seeds which themselves are very high in protein. If they are wholegrain they also contain the husk which has a large amount of the protein as well many other nutrients.

 

To get more inspiration for healthy plant-based recipes please see our new nutrition and recipe book “Life” which is due to come out in 2022.