Entertaining with Leftovers – Roasted Eggplant Dip
When you choose to purchase and eat your fruit and vegetables seasonally, you will often find there are often days, weeks, even months of an abundance of more than one of them. One season, every friend and neighbour of ours received a pumpkin as a gift, from our little backyard patch and we still had stacks spare. Eating one thing cooked the same way can give you flavour fatigue, it’s a thing, I’m sure. I think it also possibly extends to texture fatigue. Who wants pumpkin soup every day for a month?! Not when you can roast it, put chunks into curries, thinly slice and grill it, change the cuisine profile and be use a knife and fork once in a while… Variety is after all, the spice of life – spices both savoury and sweet compliment pumpkin tremendously by the way.
Excess and abundance is often when creativity is born. How many ways can you skin a carrot? Carrot skin chips are quite delicious too, a little olive oil and salt, on a single layer, in at 80-100° degrees for about 60 minutes – great for roasts or an alternative to croutons! I’m distracted now… Let’s think about a week of cooking for the family, housemates, yourself or your partner.
Maybe you blanched a whole stack of snow peas and asparagus to go along with your salmon steaks; it’d be easy to quickly put some on ice to keep them crispy and vibrant. Did you buy whole celery? Leaves and tips straight into a soup base. Tougher bottom section can be slowly braised and the gorgeous middle bits can become snacking sticks. You purchased seven eggplants but the recipe you’re making only requires four… oh the dilemma! Why not roast all of them together and put some aside for this delicious dip?
All of these items are already in your fridge. Ready and waiting for that unexpected visitor who didn’t have lunch but can’t stay for dinner. Less than 2 minutes later you’re serving up a roasted eggplant dip with three different green veggies sticks for scooping and dipping. A few veggies never spoiled anyone’s dinner or diet. But they certainly allowed you the freedom to sit down, have a chat, share a snack whilst keeping it healthy and utilising what may have been a sad bunch of limp, fridge drawer, veggies that required a swift free throw into the bin at the end of the week.
No visitors, no problem, dip for dinner – done!
Ingredients
- 300g Roasted Eggplant Flesh
- 2 Cloves Garlic (roasted yields slightly caramel and softer flavour if desired)
- 1 Lemon, Juice only, reserve zest for another project
- 1 bunch Loose Parsley Leaves
- ½ tsp ground Cumin, gently toasted, approx. 2min in dry pan
- 50g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Salt to Taste, Murray River Pink
- White Pepper to taste
Method
- Put all ingredients into your favourite food processor or blender and blitz/ pulse until smooth, or if you prefer it a little bigger parsley chunks- until your desired texture is achieved. Scoop into your favourite serving dish and serve!
- Serve with your favourite vegetable sticks, or homemade seed crackers, it works well along with slow cooked meats as a puree. I love a recipe with lots of uses!
Substitute Ingredients
- If you don’t have any citrus on hand, you could easily put in some apple cider vinegar to taste.
- If you’re not a parsley fan, any soft herbs will be fine, choose your favourite flavour or whatever needs a trim from your herb patch.
Substitute Equipment
- If you don’t have a food processor or blender you can finely diced the herbs, and mash everything else together. Easy!
Waste Tips
- Utilising left over roast veggies is the key to making dips like this one. You could roast the skin a little longer once the flesh is removed for some tasty roasty eggplant skin snacks.
- Any oil leftover from roasting the garlic could easily used to flavour a dressing or meats as a pre or post marinade.
- Parsley stalks can be used in stocks and soups, or given to your home compos or backyard chickens.
Diet and Lifestyle Notes
Eggplants are a very good source of:
- Fibre
- Vitamin B1
- Copper
- Manganese
- Vitamin B6
- Niacin
- Potassium
- Folate
- Vitamin K
- Phytonutrients Nasunin + Chlorogenic Acid
- Grain Free
- Refined Sugar Free
- Sugar Free - Low Fructose
- Dairy Free
- Nut Free
- Paleo Friendly
- Ketogenic Friendly
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Pescatarian
Author
Elena Duggan
Winner of MasterChef 2016, Elena Duggan takes us back to her golden moment ahead of her return to the show as a guest chef in Season 9.
