baba ganoush

Made my first batch of baba ganoush from scratch last night. We got eggplants with the groceries and I thought I would try to get rid of them. Not really sure what to do with them but the 1st cook says that the guy that is coming in to replace him has a wide arsenal of vegetarian dish ideas and he makes a mean eggplant Parmesan. Anyways, I grilled up a couple and then baked them and followed a recipe on line to make baba ganoush. It was funny because half way through pureeing it all and getting the ingredients in I had a brain flash. I have no idea what baba ganoush is supposed to taste like I can't taste test it to see what needs to be added.

I didn't let a little thing like that stop me though. I mixed it all up and then pretty much asked anyone walking by my counter if they had every tried it and if they did they got to taste my mixture and let me know what I needed. Apparently the dishwasher had tried it in the past and all I needed to add to my first batch was just more salt to give it that 'zing' that it usually has. The 1st cook took a taste and found it yummy. So I put it out for dinner service along with curry chips (basically curry wraps that I cut, tossed in oil and baked in the oven till crispy) to see if anyone would take it. Apparently it was a hit....well, by 'hit' I mean I made a small serving bowl of it and it went. Not hit as in I made 3 bus tubs of the it and it all went. But for a puree of eggplant, tahini paste (had to make that by scratch as well...sesame seeds are really tricky to toast. They go from white to burnt black in a split second), garlic, lemon juice and salt that looks like either something that you put into a baby or comes out of a baby, I consider it a hit. Those that I asked if it tasted ok said it was yummy, especially with the curry chips and the dishwasher took the left over baba ganoush from the bowl to his room with a handful of chips. So guess it wasn't that bad. Personally I found it tasted alright to start but left a real icky after taste in the back of my throat.

So yeah, who knows, I might make a pretty good herbivore cook if I put my mind to it....