Oriental style eggplant with tahini sauce

What could I prepare today?? A look outside - snowstorm - a look into the fridge - one eggplant left.
That´s not really much of a basis to prepare a tasty dish for my blog I thought  but I must say that I am quite pleased with the outcome. Actually the ingredients used are more or less the same as in Babaganoush - a well known oriental mezze recipe. The only difference is that this recipe uses basil instead of Parsley and  it´s not a puree but more a salad. I think it´s a perfect dish in summer with a barbeque but also served as an appetizer with some crispy - maybe even ovenfresh? - bread it is quite appealing.

The recipe source is from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook with some adaptions.

Last weekend I was searching the web for new and interesting sites. I stumbled over RouxBe. What is RouxBe? It´s an online cooking school that teaches cooks of any level to become better and more confident cooks. Here´s a link to a video about the school: The RouxBe cooking school  The school  guides users along the same learning paths used to teach aspiring chefs in professional culinary schools around the world. I´m sure that by learning fundamental cooking skills and techniques you will enjoy cooking a lot more and will be satisfied and proud with the results you´ll achieve. I hope this might encourage and inspire you to cook more at home.

So in future I will add some links in my recipes that will take you to short videos which will explain e.g. a certain technique. Hope you´ll like it. There´s always something more to learn..

click HERE for a printable version


Serves 8 as a side dish or small appetizer:

4               Eggplants, medium sized
4-5 tbsp    Olive oil
                 Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To marinade the eggplant:

6 tbsp       Olive oil
6 tbsp       Lemon juice
1-2           Red chili peppers
1              Garlic clove
4 tbsp       Fresh basil
                Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Tahinisauce:

100 ml      Lemon juice, freshly squeezed
100 g        Tahini
75   ml      Water
  1             Garlic clove, chopped
3-4 tbsp    Fresh basil leaves, chopped
                 Sea salt, freshly ground black pepper


Preheat the oven to 200 °C and line a baking tray with parchment.

Trim the ends of the eggplants, then cut the eggplants into halves transversely and cut these halves into equal wedges. Set the wedges skin side down on your baking tray and brush them with olive oil, salt and pepper and bake until golden brown for about 20 to 25 minutes.

In a large bowl combine the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Cut the chile peppers and the garlic into brunoise (what is brunoise?)separating the seeds from the chili peppers beforehand if you don´t like it too spicy. Add to the bowl.
Cut the basil into chiffonade (how to chiffonade) and add to the bowl as well.

Once the eggplant has reached an appetizing golden colour and brown tips, remove from the oven and mix immediately but with care so the eggplant will keep it´s shape with the marinade. Let sit at room temperature for one hour.

Combine all the ingredients for the tahini sauce in a food processor and mix well.

Serve the eggplant toghether with the tahini sauce and crispy, fresh bread.