How to make the perfect baba ganoush — theguardian.com

Everyone has their gastronomic tics – those dishes, or ingredients, or techniques, that suddenly make everything else on the menu look like ugly sisters. The word "smoky" generally does it for me, although I'm a sucker for a nice juicy aubergine as well, so if baba ganoush is available, you can keep your boring old hummus – my pitta is only going in one direction. Like the ubiquitous hummus, this is a dish of indeterminate origins: Levantine is probably as specific as you can fairly get, because it pops up, under a variety of names, from Turkey to Egypt as a dip, a salad, or a vegetable side. It might be loose and smooth enough to scoop with bread, or so chunky you need a fork to tackle it – but never less, as Anissa Helou observes, than "exceptionally good". And, with aubergine season drawing to a close, this is the time to tackle it.

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