Roasted Eggplant Salad
Anchored by luscious roasted eggplant, this beautiful salad boasts a medley of flavours and colours accented by tahini, cherry tomatoes, sumac and a bounty of herbs.
Ingredients
To roast eggplant
- 2 kg eggplant
- 50 g olive oil
- 2 g salt
- 2 g coarse ground black pepper
To roast Garden Medley cherry tomatoes
- 700g Garden Medley cherry tomatoes
- 5g salt
- 14g olive oil
- 5g salt
- 2g coarse ground black pepper
To make tahini sauce
- 80g tahini paste (Jordanian or any brand is fine)
- 25g fresh lemon juice
- 80ml lukewarm water
- 2g garlic, minced
- 2g salt
- 1g coarse ground pepper
Mixed herbs
- 7g basil leaves
- 7g English parsley leaves
- 7g dill leaves
Other ingredients for finishing garnish
- 10g pistachios
- 5g sumac
- 10g olive oil
Instructions
Roasted eggplant
- Preheat oven to 230'c fan
- Peel the eggplant in alternating strips and cut into 1cm thickness
- Line baking tray with baking paper and brush with olive oil. Place sliced eggplant on the baking sheet, brush more olive oil on the top side of the eggplant and season with salt and pepper.
- Roast eggplant in oven for 15 minutes (or longer time if required) until golden brown.
Tahini sauce
- Assemble all ingredients in a food processor or blender until sauce is creamy and ivory-coloured. Scrape the sides of the processor periodically during processing. If using a blender, you may need to use a long-handled spoon to break up the thick part of the sauce once every 30 seconds to keep it from clogging your blender blades.
- After a few minutes of blending, sauce will turn into a rich, smooth paste. If mixture is too thick, slowly add more water until it reaches the desired consistency. You may need quite a bit of water depending on the thickness of your tahini paste.
Roasted Garden Medley cherry tomatoes
- Preheat oven to 170'C
- Toss cherry tomatoes with thyme and olive oil on a baking sheet; season with salt and pepper.
- Roast for 10 minutes, tossing once, until tomatoes are blistered and beginning to burst.
Toasted pistachios
- Preheat oven to 175’C
- Spread the pistachios evenly on a rimmed cookie sheet.
- Place in the oven for about 6 to 8 minutes. They will become very fragrant when they are done.
Plating instruction
- Arrange roasted eggplants on the serving platter.
- Drizzle tahini sauce over eggplant.
- Arrange roasted Garden Medley cherry tomatoes on eggplant.
- Add mixed herbs, chopped pistachios, sumac and drizzle with olive oil before serving.