The Perfect Smokey Eggplant Dip

Pomegranates originated in Iran and then made their way to Lebanon. They grow all over and we love to incorporate them in our meals and use them as a little garnish. And I'm going to show you four of my favorite dishes that include pomegranate. Starting with baba ghanoush, a smoked eggplant dish. There's so many ways to get the seeds out of a pomegranate, but my technique is to just score it a little bit and then use some water to help you get all of the seeds out. And look at that, the pomegranates just sink right down in the bottom of the bowl. For these eggplants, I want to get them nice and charred on the grill. And as they char up, they're going to get nice and smoky. Hence the name of this dish, smoky eggplant dip. And the key thing is to keep turning your eggplant as they cook. You see that? That's what I was looking for, fully charred. Let's make some baba ghanoush. Oh yeah, the inside of my eggplant is nice and smoky and so easy now to peel off that skin. And baba ghanoush is one of our maza platters. It's a nice appetizer and the perfect dip with some pita bread. So baba is father and ghanoush means spoiled. So if you want to spoil your father, this is what you make him. I just want to mash down my eggplant so that it's nice and smooth and it's going to have a nice creamy texture. And for a little bit of zing, some lemon juice. It doesn't just brighten up the flavor, it brightens it up in color too. And I'm not done, I've got more flavor to add to this. And we Lebanese love our garlic. I roasted my garlic with just a little bit of olive oil and I love this stuff. I even spread it on toast or on pita bread. Smells nice and smoky, garlicky. And now I want to add some more sauce. My roasted sesame seed sauce. Tahini. It's gonna add some more flavor and color to my baba ghanoush. And a little bit of olive oil. Starting to come together. A little bit of salt. Oh yeah. And to sweeten things up, a little bit of pomegranate molasses. It's pomegranate juice that's been thickened and reduced and it's nice and sweet. Baba ghanoush reminds me of my farm. We used to grow eggplants and we always had to pick them and separate them and box them and we always had fresh eggplant available so this was our go-to dish. Such a good appetizer too. A little bit of pita bread. And in Lebanon, the majority of our appetizers are kind of designed with this well in the middle and then we take our olive oil and we drizzle it in the middle there. And because I love pomegranate, I'm gonna sprinkle some on top for some color. I can't wait to try this. Smoky. That molasses, oh so good. Nice and sweet. And I love the olive oil. It just gives it a nice texture as you're eating the baba ghanoush. A little bit of that citrus. This is good. Really good.