lapsang-infused baba ganoush
It’s the next round of our monthly tea recipes with yours truly and Dixya from Food Pleasure & Health. We decided to explore more cooking with tea this month with Thanksgiving around the corner. Dixya made some delicious Earl Grey Truffles that look amazing and are dairy free! For those of you who don’t know, we are in the process of studying to be tea sommeliers and will hopefully be done sometime in 2021. As a part of our learning, we are experimenting with and posting recipes about tea every month. Sometimes it’s a beverage, sometimes it’s a history lesson, sometimes it’s a beauty treatment. This month I decided to do a savory side dish which is a perfect addition to your thanksgiving table. And if its a little smaller this year given the circumstances, this dip is versatile and keeps in the fridge for a few days. In my opinion, it’s really better as leftovers because the spices (and tea!) have more time to really infuse into the dish.
Lapsang Souchong, is a Chinese tea from the Fujian province, is known for its smokiness. This quality is achieved by smoke drying the tea leaves over pinewood embers. It’s also been used in cooking for ages. It is said that the tea was first creaed on accident by citizens in the Wuyi mountains needing to flee quickly from Qing soliders while needing to preserve freshly picked tea. It was sold anyway to Dutch traders despite the odor, and they loved it and came back for more.
Baba Ganoush is a dish native to the area of the world sometimes called the Middle East, The Eastern Mediterranean, The Levant or Western Asia. The list of regions that have ties to this dish include Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel and some of Turkey. It’s essentially an eggplant dip, and in many versions the eggplant is smoked. This is something that can be difficult to achieve without a proper flame or grill, and agents like liquid smoke are sometimes added. But lapsang can easily be ground up to add smokiness to this delicious dish!
My take is chunky with some tang from the lemon juice, and the tiny touch of smoked paprika really takes the lapsang over the edge. It’s delicious drizzled with olive oil and enjoyed with crusty bread, crackers or as a spread of sandwiches. This tea works well as a spice as an easy way to add smokiness to a dish. Or brew a cup on the side and enjoy it with your spread for a lunchtime pick me up!
Ingredients
1 medium eggplant
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp lapsang souchong tea leaves
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp olive oil, more for drizzling
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
salt, to taste
Directions
1. Preheat Oven to 400 degrees
2. Prick your eggplant 4-5 times with a fork and place in oven to roast for 1 hour, turning once while cooking
3. Meanwhile grind your lapsang tea to a fine powder in a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle
4. Whisk together with the olive oil and lemon juice, shake and set aside
5. Mince garlic and set aside
6. Remove eggplant once its done roasting, let it cool until you can handle it. Then strip off the peel. You can remove the seeds if you wish, personally I like them.
7. In a food processor add eggplant, tahini, salt, garlic and spices and process until combined, slowly adding olive oil/lemon juice/lapsang infusion while processing. Taste and adjust salt to your preference. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to one week.
