Roasted Eggplant Salad

This is one of my favorite spreads for bread or dips for vegetables. It is so simple to make, calls for very few ingredients, and its taste is simply out of this world! 

Roasted Eggplant Salad
Ingredients:
Eggplant
Mayonnaise (homemade mayo is best)
Salt
Scallions

Instructions
1. Roast the whole eggplant. You can do this in oven or in your broiler. The cheapest way of all is to put a whole eggplant inside a barbecue powered by firewood. The way I chose to do this is to lean my eggplant on my burner, turn on the burner, and char one part of the eggplant at a time. When one part is charred, I move the eggplant to expose another side to the flame. Once the whole eggplant is soft, I take it off the flame. If you roast the eggplant this way, be sure to put a piece of aluminum foil on the stovetop, because the eggplant will drip while roasting.

2. Remove the eggplant from the burnt peel and put into a bowl.

3. Some people like to blend this in a food processor, but I try to conserve electricity where I can and also prefer to keep the stringy texture of the eggplant, so I use a fork instead. Beat the eggplant clumps until they come apart and you have a uniform mixture. I find using two forks and pulling the eggplant pieces in two directions simultaneously helps break up the clumps the best.

4. Add a dollop of mayonnaise.

5. Chop up some scallions and add.

 

6. Add salt to taste.

Enjoy!

Variations:

• You can make this with prepared tahini sauce in place of the mayonnaise.
• You can also make this with garlic powder instead of the scallions.

The official name for this dish is baba ganouj and it is a Middle Eastern recipe. Have you ever had it before? Do you make it yourself? If so, what do you put in yours?