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Thursday, August 7, 2014

Spicy Roasted Eggplant Caviar

My love affair with eggplant continues (and is not ready to end).  This time, I exposed its caviar and sublimed it with pure adornments such as olive oil from Nyons, toasted pine nuts from Pakistan, and black lava salt from Hawaii.  Did you know the active coconut charcoal made to blacken the lava salt is an antitoxin and digestive aid?  Intriguing!
Something magical happens when you combine quality with spice and mix it together with love.  Today, that is this caviar.
The difference between my eggplant caviar and the traditional baba ganoush is the use of tahini.  Since I was already serving some lazy hummus at my little dinner party, I didn't want to double up on the tahini doses and risk having the variety be too similar.
yield about 2 cups
Ingredients
2 eggplants (600g) halved lengthwise
1/4 cup yogurt
1 clove garlic, grated
1 Tbsp lime juice
2 Tbsp quality EVOO plus more to drizzle
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp piment d'espelette
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
Few cracks black pepper
1 tsp Hawaiian black lava salt (or smoked salt)
Directions
1.  Rub some olive oil over the eggplant halves and roast flesh side down for about 50 minutes at 190°C 375°F.
2.  Scoop out the flesh and blend together with the yogurt, garlic, lime juice, olive oil, red pepper flakes, and black pepper.
3.  Stir in the toasted pine nuts.  
4.  Add the black salt just before serving with a drizzle of excellent olive oil.

This was a creamy smokey spicy dream come true...
The pine nuts make it even more interesting than the regular old eggplant caviar and that lava salt just takes it over the top!

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