Easy Baba Ghanouzh

Directions

1. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees and line a good sized pan that will hold your eggplants with aluminum foil
2. Wash off your eggplant (it's called Batenzhan in Arabic) and remove the stem end and slice in half legnthwise.
3. Place your eggplant(s), cut side down in the baking pan and place them into the oven for 1 hour.
4. Take the pan out of the oven and let the eggplants cool - they skin should have started turning brown and the eggplant halves should have shrunk some. You might want to drain off the juices that have come out.
5. While the eggplants cool, mash up the clove(s) of garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle until it's a smooth, silky paste. BTW, this is also excellent to put on grilled chicken.
6. In a container, scoop out the contents of the eggplant and stir them to break them up a bit - this shouldn't be smooth. Add in your garlic paste, tahini and stir.
7. Add in your olive oil to give it a nice gloss - this is really eyeballed but I generally go with half a tablespoon.
8. Taste and add salt or oil as needed. This really needs at least a day in the fridge to allow the flavours to come together.
9. When you serve, drizzle a little more oil on it and sprinkle some sumac (you can find this as any Arabic market) for colour and some additional flavour. Believe it or not, I usually serve this with tortilla chips which really complement it - there's no rule that says you have to serve it with pita!
10. Sahtain/Enjoy!!