Not surprisingly, Mediterranean food is actually pretty hard to come by in Guangzhou, at least from what I’ve seen so far.  Fortunately, ingredients are plentiful, especially eggplants and sesame sauce (used often in Chinese cooking and a good substitute for tahini)–perfect for me, because I LOVE baba ghanoush!

Baba ghanoush is basically an eggplant dip that is delicious with homemade veggie chips, pita, lamb, chicken…well if you’re me, it’s delicious on pretty much any savory dish. Oh yeah, it’s heavenly in sandwiches when you don’t want to use mayo.  It’s super easy to make, drool worthy and actually pretty good for you!  Interested?  Keep reading!

Ingredients

• an eggplant
• tahini or some kind of sesame sauce (I just used Chinese sesame sauce)
• garlic
• onions
• lemon juice
• salt, pepper and cayenne to taste

Poke holes in your eggplant and wrap it with foil.  Stick it in the oven at 400F/205C for about 35minutes.  When cooked, peel the eggplant, squeeze out any extra juice and put it in a food processer (or bootleg blender) with three cloves of garlic, 1/8th of a red onion, two tablespoons of sesame sauce and one tablespoon of lemon juice.  Pulse until even and add salt, pepper and cayenne to taste.  That’s it! You’re done!  Normally baba ghanoush also has olive oil in it, but the sesame sauce I used already contained a little sesame oil, so extra oil was not needed.  Top with garlic chips and serve with whatever veggie chip you’ve prepared.

To make eggplant chips, simply splice an eggplant into thin rounds, spread on baking parchment, and bake for about an hour at 225F or ~105C.

Enjoy!

♥’S THE BOOTLEG COOK