What We’re Cooking This Week: Beet & Eggplant Dip

Wellspent Market founder Jim Dixon has been writing about food and restaurants forWillamette Weekfor a long time. He wants our readers to eat well, and he shows them how with the recipes he creates just for us by using simple cooking techniques and easy-to-find ingredients.

Hummus, falafel and tahini immediately evoke the Middle East. Beets, not so much. But chard’s cousin was first cultivated, mostly for the green tops, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. How those cultures prepared and ate the dense little roots is lost to history, but it’s likely they had to boil them forever just like us.

So start the beets first, and let them simmer away while you roast the eggplant to make this baba ghanouj–adjacent dip. A food processor isn’t necessary, but it is a lot faster and can produce a silkier version. I kind of like a chunky spread. There were no Cuisinarts along the Nile back in the day.

To get the dip into your mouth, pita is the obvious vehicle. But I actually prefer a good crusty bread, the world’s best industrial cracker (Finn Crisp, fight me), or even a good tortilla chip. Sometimes I add a dollop to a composed salad or a bowl of cool lentils.

Recipe

• 2 small (tennis ball-size) beets
• 1 large eggplant
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 jalapeño
• 1 bunch cilantro or mint
• ½ cup tahini
• Zest and juice from 2 lemons (about ¼ cup juice)
• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher-style sea salt

Trim the long, hairy root from the bottom of the beet, cut off and save any greens (cook them like chard), and simmer the beets in a pot of salted water until a knife slides into them easily. Drain, let cool until you can handle them, and peel the outer skin with your fingers and the back edge of a paring knife.

While the beets are simmering, roast the eggplant on a tray at 400° F for about 45 minutes, or until its skin is wrinkled and the interior very soft. After the eggplant has cooled slightly, trim off its stem end and slice it half from top to bottom. Peel off its skin with the back of a knife or use a spoon to spoon to get every last bit of eggplant flesh. Once peeled, place the eggplant flesh into a colander over a bowl or sink to drain for 15 minutes or so.

Coarsely chop the garlic, jalapeño (remove the white membrane for less chile heat), and the cilantro, including the stems (discard the stems if you’re swapping in mint). Cut the peeled beets into quarters.

Combine everything in your food processor with the remaining ingredients and pulse until it’s fairly smooth. Alternatively, chop everything as fine as you can before combining with the tahini, lemon juice and olive oil.

Season with salt to taste and serve chilled with a good drizzle of olive oil.