Moroccan Smoky Eggplant Dip

Smoky Eggplant Dip on Toasted Bread

There’s something so sensual, colorful, and romantic about Moroccan cuisine. Washing your hands with rose-infused water before meals. Biting into cinnamon sugar-sprinkled filo dough packages of braised chicken. Spooning into desserts kissed with orange flower water. Watching belly dancers in bright, spangly costumes.

So, when I saw a feature article about Moroccan cooking expert Paula Wolfert in the May 2010 issue of Food & Wine Magazine, I took notice–especially when I turned to the page with a recipe for Pot-Roasted Eggplant with Tomatoes and Cumin (which Wolfert and F&W editor Emily Kaiser gleaned from Dar Yacout Restaurant in Marrakech).

According to the instructions, you puncture an eggplant, then place it in a heavy cast-iron pot (with no fat!), cover it, and cook it over very low heat until soft and charred, turning it once. The whole process takes about 40 minutes, and the result is a deeply smoky flavor.

Had I read the text correctly?, I’d wondered. Surely, heeding those steps would mean destroying an eggplant? Still, I trusted Paula Wolfert and was eager to try a new technique.

My next food shopping expedition found me loading a heavy purple-black specimen into my cart. If it becomes acrid and inedible, I told myself, I won’t have wasted too much money. Even if it worked, I didn’t look forward to cleaning my Le Creuset pot post-experiment.

At home, I set to work. Sure enough, the room soon took on a bit of a bitter odor–usually a sign to immediately turn down the heat and later gingerly scoop the unburned food off of the top, discarding the burned bits on the bottom. This time, the burning was intentional, I thought. A good burning smell, almost like labor pains are good pains–pain for a purpose.

After 40 minutes, all of the vegetable’s skin had charred, reminding me of roasted bell peppers. Following the directions, I carefully cut the eggplant open, then let it drain for a few minutes in a colander. Next, I scooped out the flesh and discarded the skin and some of the seeds.

Finally, I mashed the tender flesh, then simmered it for a few minutes with tomatoes and spices. The result: hauntingly delicious and super-smoky–in a good way.  I added the technique to my repertoire (despite the fact that I was right about the hard work of cleaning the pot).

A few days later, I repeated the process, swapping chickpeas and and green onion for the fresh herbs, and eschewing the cayenne and some of the sweet smoked paprika so the dish would appeal to my kids. My husband and I (and our boys) ate this easy, delicious, and inexpensive vegetarian entree topped with some Greek yogurt. It could also serve as a snack or first course–try it on goat cheese-topped pita chips.

Soaking the Pot