Persian Eggplant Dip

Hi everyone,

I started a part time job in The Body Shop. I've always fascinated by their amazing eco-friendly products, but now that I'm working there and found out how much the company participate in community fair trade activities, makes me feel I'm part of their amazing movement, makes me just happy :)

Today, I'll describe one of my favorite food: Persian eggplant dip. In Iran, it's called: Kashk O Bademjan, Kashk is a dairy product with sour taste (Kashk), bademjan is eggplant in persian. This is a vegetarian meal, perfect for your meatless mondays (Meatless Monday). If there's no Persian grocery store close by to you, you can use Sour cream and lemon juice instead (it's explained throughly in the preparation).

Serving size: 4 people
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 3 hour

What you need

Large eggplant: 3

Low fat margarine: 4 Tbsp

Canola oil: 1/4 cup

Small onion: 3

Canola oil: 2 Tbsp

Garlic: 4 clove

Dried peppermint: 2 Tbsp

Turmeric: 1/4 tsp

Kashk: 1/2 cup

Salt: 2 tsp

Brewed saffron: 1/8 cup

Cayenne pepper: 1/4 tsp

If you don't have Kashk:

Salt: add 2 more tsp

Sour cream: 1/2 cup

Lemon juice: 1 Tbsp

How to prepare

• Peel eggplants. I wear gloves to prevent staining my hands with eggplant pigment. halve eggplants and cook them using low heat with margarine and canola oil. cover the skillet with a lid, so you don't need lots of oil to cook the eggplants.

• Peel and chop the onions, and fry them with canola oil. When they're soft and golden, mince garlic and add the mined garlic and pepper mint to the onions. Stir them for 5 minutes on medium heat, and then put them in a mixer, but don't mix them yet.

• When the eggplants are cooked and softened, add them on the mixer. Now mix cooked eggplant, fried onion, peppermint and garlic, until it makes a smooth homogenous mix.

• Pour the mix in the saucepan, add turmeric, kashk (or sour cream and lemon juice), salt, brewed saffron and cayenne pepper, and stir it on a low heat. Cover the saucepan with lid but not completely, let the steam runs out of the mix. Every 10 minutes, stir the mix in the saucepan. After 30 minutes, the dip is ready.