Baba ghanouj and pita

Photo l Felicia D’Ambrosio

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

This first sentence of Michael Pollan’s New York Times essay on nutritionism was written not quite two years ago. Simple as it seems, he goes on to describe what those seven words really mean. Eat whole food, not “edible foodlike substances.” Consume mostly plants, especially leaves. Cook. Get out of the supermarket and get down with the farmer’s market. Pollan also cites Thomas Jefferson’s advice to treat meat more like a flavoring than a food.

The infant weeks of the new year are rife with unlikely resolutions. Lose weight, go to the gym, stop smoking/drinking/Internet porn-ing. Mine is simple: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Middle Eastern and Mediterranean ways of eating make use of a little meat and lots of whole grains and vegetables, along with healthy fats like olive oil. One of my favorites is baba ghanouj, a simple roasted eggplant dip. A few tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil add a bit of fruity brightness to the smoky eggplants, along with a handful of chopped parsley and a generous turn of black pepper. The dip can be scooped up with toasted whole wheat pita or raw vegetables for the truly virtuous, and makes a great pita sandwich or roll-up with a few leaves of romaine or arugula.

This recipe for baba ghanouj was kindly explained to me by Gloria Bitar, who was born in Lebanon and is looking good at 81.

Check out the Tete-approved method after the jump.

Tete’s Baba Ghanouj

Go Get This:

2 medium eggplants

Handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped

2 cloves garlic, diced tiny or smushed through a garlic press. Adjust to taste, if you like more garlic go for it.

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Juice of one lemon (if desired. Tete doesn’t do this, but i snuck it in mine)

Two tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Now Do This:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Wait until it is truly preheated, at least 15 minutes.

Poke the two eggplants all over with a fork. Place them in a roasted pan or on a cookie sheet. Roast at 375 for one hour.

When eggplants are soft all over, remove from oven and peel. Use a fork and a knife to hold the flesh of the eggplant and pull away the skin. Rough chop eggplant flesh into cubes.

Place eggplant, crushed or diced garlic, lemon juice, salt, pepper and parsley to large mixing bowl. Mash everything with a potato masher or the back of a big fork.

Taste, adjust seasoning. Lightly mash in olive oil.

Serve room temp or cold from refrigerator with pita, lavash, and cut-up raw veggies.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 10:42 am and is filed under SUPPER, Vegan/Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.