The Slapdash Cook

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I have been on a Middle Eastern cooking kick lately, at least where Middle Eastern is defined as the stuff from Middle Eastern cuisines that Americans normally eat. We had an entire globe eggplant and it was brutally hot, so I figured the way to use it was to make a nice cool baba ghanoush that I could dip veggies into and thus avoid actually heating anything up. (Of course, you have to cook the eggplant first. More on that in a moment.) Thus, I picked up some tahini and went at it.

I used this recipe, which includes a comment further down giving a tip that I think really makes this dish. Ideally, you roast the eggplant over a fire and it gets a smoky flavor, right? But most of us aren’t going to go to the trouble of grilling just for the sake of a dip, no matter how creamy and delicious. So this commenter suggested what she said her Greek mother-in-law does, which is to slap the eggplant over a stove burner on medium until blackened on all sides. Presumably she means a gas stove. So I did that. Then I followed it by roasting in my very favorite appliance, the slow cooker! It didn’t make the kitchen hot like the oven would have, AND I could go work out while it was cooking. Win!

J. was more excited that I bought tahini than I expected. Since I had a ton left over, I decided he (and, ahem, I) would enjoy it if I also made some halvah. Halvah turns out to be the slapdash cook’s dream recipe — it is extremely flexible. The halvah recipes I found either had numbers, implying that they were part of a large series, or suggested that you throw in pretty much whatever you like. I’m guessing everyone in that region has their personal favorite recipe for it, like potato salad or chilaquiles here.

Slow Cooker Baba Ghanoush
One globe eggplant, medium to large (you could use the littler Asian ones, but then you have to peel even MORE eggplant skin)
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice (the commenter on that recipe who thinks this is too much lemon juice is crazy. I might be able to taste the lemon juice in my finished product, but it’s subtle.)
2 cloves garlic, chopped or pressed (don’t skip this step unless your blender is more awesome than mine)
2 tb sesame seeds (I didn’t use this, but only because I couldn’t find the sesame seeds — I think I may have cleaned the fridge a little over-enthusiastically)
1 1/2 tb olive oil (the good kind! None of that “light in flavor” BS.)
1/2 tsp salt (DO NOT OMIT!!! The original recipe says “salt and pepper to taste,” so I figured it wasn’t important. I was so so so wrong. The baba tasted flat and boring until I stirred in the salt. It made a huge difference.)

1. Roast the eggplant over a grill or directly on a burner of a gas stove. The goal is to get all of the sides more or less burned so the finished product will taste smoky. This is not an exact science, so don’t sweat it if things aren’t even. I used a fork to hold it while this was going on, which turned out to be handy because…

2. …you must poke a few holes in the skin of the eggplant before roasting. If you don’t, hearsay tells me it will explode. Stick your holey eggplant in the slow cooker on high for about an hour, or in a 400 degree oven for 30-40 minutes, per the above recipe, if you can stand the heat.

3. Now comes the tricky bit: Peeling the eggplant. If you put it in an airtight container right away, you can trap some steam and let the skin kinda slide off. I think the slow cooker might have done this for me, since the skin was easy to remove, though fractured from all the poking with a fork.

4. Now comes the easy bit: Pureeing it in a blender! Add the peeled eggplant, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, salt and sesame seeds. Process until mixed. If it seems a bit thick, use the juices left over from roasting to thin it out a bit. At this point, you might wanna taste and see whether you think it needs more salt or garlic or lemon.

5. Cover and refrigerate for at least three hours. I assume this is to let the flavors marry. It certainly tasted better today, but again, it wasn’t until I added the salt that it really worked for me.

Slapdash Halvah
(based on this recipe)
1/2 cup tahini
1/2 cup sugar
scant 1/4 cup water (really should have been 1/3 of 1/2 cup, but at that point I gave up measuring)
dash of lemon juice
Optional goodies:
2-3 tb of sweetened flaked coconut you’ve had in the freezer since forever
2-3 tb of baking cocoa
Whatever else you think tastes nice — nuts and seeds, dried fruit, vanilla, spices…

1. Combine water, sugar,lemon juice and any flavorings in a small saucepan. Mix until sugar is dissolved and bring to a boil.

2. You are going to have to let this sucker boil for a while to get the water to evaporate and the syrup to turn into a proto-candy. Officially, you are aiming for what the recipes call the “soft ball stage,” which is explained here. You want the syrup to form a ball if you drop a bit of it into a cup of water, but still be flatten-able if you squish it with your fingers. I am lazy and I have a candy thermometor, so I just did the dishes and checked on it every now and then until it got to about 240 degrees F.

3. Turn off the heat and heat up the tahini to 120 degrees. I just put it in the microwave until it was hot to the touch, probably less than a minute on high. I am not totally sure why you have to do this, but I’m guessing it has to do with the temperature difference between 240-degree syrup and room temperature tahini.

4. Combine tahini with syrup well! Then mix in whatever goodies you’re using. I might have tried marbling it if I had thought of using baker’s chocolate instead of cocoa.

5. Pour into a greased plastic container or something lined with parchment or muffin cups. If I were a neater, more detail-oriented person, I could have fun with ice cube trays that make ice in shapes. Instead, I just slopped it into a loaf pan.

6. Cover and put into fridge. The recipe said to leave it alone for a day and a half so sugar crystals could form. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.