This is a delicious and spicy aubergine dip called Moutabel that is popular in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. It is best eaten with fresh hot pita bread.
Altered ingredient amounts. I used a very mild chilli when making this the first time and it was bland. When we add Tabasco Sause it added a kick to it. Now I use hot chillis. This is a great low-fat side dish. - 29 Sep 2008
Altered ingredient amounts. Where I live right now, the harvest of eggplants, green chilllis, garlic, basil and onions are pouring in faster than we can keep up. This recipe was a GREAT way to take advantage of the local ingredients. Thank you so much for sharing! I did make several minor changes: I punctured the eggplants with a toothpick all over, then blackened them on the barbecue all over. Plunging them into a bowl of ice water made the black skins slip off easily. I also did this with 2 green chillis and added them in addition to the 2 fresh green chillis the recipe calls for. I doubled the garlic and increased the basil by about 50%. Lastly, I used lime juice instead of lemon, as that is what is local around here. The end result was a smoky, garlicky spread, remeniscent of baba ganoush (but better!) that we spread on tortillas and filled with other roasted local veggies from the harvest. AMAZING! - 29 Sep 2008
I grew up in the Middle East and had never tried this...So much wasted time! This is delicious, healthy, and relatively easy. I peeled the outer part of the eggplants, then wrung them out a bit, and tore them apart before adding them to the food processor; that just seemed easier to me. This is going to be a regular in my house! - 29 Sep 2008