Cava Roasted Eggplant Dip

Home reconstruction

Aubergine is more than 90% water. Roast one, scoop the flesh out, and blend it straight away, and you have made a thin, pale, watery dip no matter how good everything else in the bowl is.

Drain the flesh in a sieve for twenty minutes. A large aubergine will give up several tablespoons of liquid, and what is left behind is concentrated and genuinely tastes of roasted aubergine.

This is the step every restaurant version includes and most home recipes leave out.

Roast it whole and blackened

Halved and roasted cut-side down works, but you lose the smoke.

Whole, skin pierced, until the skin is blackened and the aubergine has collapsed. The skin chars, and that char is what gives the flesh inside the smoky flavour that makes the dip taste like more than vegetable purée.

Direct on a gas flame, under a hot grill, or 220°C in the oven for 45 minutes. The aubergine should look ruined — wrinkled, black and completely soft. Anything less and it is not done.

Pierce it first. A sealed aubergine builds steam pressure and can burst.

Then drain, then season

Scoop the flesh away from the skin while it is still hot. Into a sieve over a bowl, twenty minutes, pressing gently once or twice.

Season after draining, not before — if you salt it beforehand, you pour a good share of the salt away with the liquid.

Chop rather than blend

Same principle as chimichurri, for a different reason. Blended aubergine goes completely smooth and slightly gluey, and it loses the character that makes it a roasted vegetable dip rather than a hummus.

Chop it with a knife or mash it with a fork. A little texture is correct.

What you need

• 2 large aubergines (about 900 g)
• 3 tbsp tahini
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp olive oil, plus more to serve
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 3/4 tsp fine salt
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar

Method

1. Oven to 220°C. Pierce the aubergines several times.
2. Roast 40–45 minutes, until blackened and fully collapsed.
3. Cool 10 minutes, then scoop the flesh away from the skin.
4. Into a sieve over a bowl for 20 minutes. Press gently.
5. Chop the drained flesh on a board, or mash with a fork.
6. Stir in the tahini, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, cumin, paprika, vinegar and salt.
7. Parsley through, more olive oil on top.

Whisk the tahini first

Tahini separates in the jar and the paste at the bottom is very thick. Stirred straight from the jar into a dip, it stays as lumps.

Whisk the tahini with the lemon juice on its own first. It will seize and go pale and stiff — that is normal — then loosen into a smooth cream. Then it combines properly.

The vinegar as well as the lemon

Lemon gives brightness that fades. A tablespoon of red wine vinegar gives a deeper, more persistent sharpness that holds up over the two or three days the dip keeps.

Using both is why restaurant versions still taste alive on day three.

Storing

Four days in the fridge in a sealed container with a film of olive oil on top.

The flavour improves for the first day as the garlic mellows into it.

It does not freeze — aubergine goes spongy and weeps on thawing.