15/08/2021

Aubergine & Beetroot Moutabal / Baba Ganoush

Name: Aubergine & Beetroot Moutabal
Prep time: 12 min
Cook time: 38 min
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: 1 large aubergine (approx 400 grams); 200 g cooked beetroot (roughly chopped); 2 cloves garlic (finely chopped); 1 lemon (juice only); 2 rounded tbsp tahini sesame paste; 2 rounded tsp ground cumin; ½ tsp salt; ¼ tsp black pepper; extra virgin olive oil (optional); ½ tbsp extra virgin olive oil; 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds; ½ tsp Aleppo pepper flakes or chilli flakes; mint leaves

Aubergine & Beetroot Moutabal (or baba ganoush) looks beautiful and tastes both smoky and sweet, earthy and mildly spicy.

But this Middle Eastern inspired dip or spread with tahini, garlic, lemon and cumin is very easy to make.

A whole aubergine is charred under the grill then baked in the oven until very soft. It’s then blended along with cooked beetroot and the rest of the ingredients.

Eat as a dip with crudites, in flatbread with salad, or as part of a mezze style meal of lots of small, tempting dishes.

Jump to Recipe

MOUTABAL OR BABA GANOUSH?

The lesser known cousin of hummus, with aubergine replacing the chickpeas in a creamy mix with tahini, lemon and garlic, has always been baba ganoush to me. I posted my own recipe for Baba Ganoush with Roasted Garlic a few years ago, oblivious to the debate about exactly what baba ganoush is.

But I’ve recently learned that what I’ve been calling ‘baba ganoush’ might actually be ‘moutabal’!

One school of thought says that baba ganoush never includes tahini. But it might have onions, tomatoes, walnuts and/or pomegranate molasses. They insist that it’s the creamy, tahini flavoured one (which can also contain yogurt) which is moutabal.

Others say precisely the opposite is the case. Personally, it’s only realtively recently that I’d heard of moutabal.

Complicating things even further are all the various spellings of both dishes. Should I write ganoush or ganouj? Is it moutabal, moutabel or even mutabal?

And then you have the Syrian dish of shawander which includes beetroot and tahini but not aubergine 😩.

All of which means I really didn’t know what to call the recipe I want to share with you today.

However, what I do know is that this beautifully coloured spread or dip combining smoky aubergine, sweet beetroot, earthy tahini, lemon, garlic and cumin, tastes wonderful!

I finally decided on Aubergine & Beetroot Moutabal.

But you can call it whatever you like.

If you’re a fan of Middle Eastern inspired flavours, I think you’ll love it whatever the name!

THE AUBERGINE

There are lovers of aubergine and there are haters of aubergine.

I’m guessing that, if you’ve read this far, you’re one of the former who knows that, cooked properly, aubergines can be delightful.

That’s especially the case if you char the skin first which adds smokiness. Although the blackened skin is removed before the flesh is combined with the other ingredients, echoes of it remain and subtly flavour the dish.

Traditionally, the aubergine would have been cooked over a fire. But I char the skin under a very hot grill before finishing the aubergine in the oven until it’s soft and almost collapsing.

If you have a gas hob, you could sit the aubergine directly on the gas flame instead of grilling it. Messy, but effective.

By the way, don’t forget to prick the aubergine all over with a fork before cooking it. I once forgot and the sound of the skin bursting off was so loud I almost jumped out of my skin.

Once the aubergine is cool enough to handle, you can take off and discard the skin.

Depending on the aubergine, you might find a lot of juices come out. We don’t need these, so I sit the aubergine in a sieve for a few minutes to drain.

A quick mash with a fork will push a bit more liquid out and then you’re ready to finish the Aubergine & Beetroot Moutabal.

MAKING AUBERGINE & BEETROOT MOUTABAL

Making the moutabal is as simple as putting everything in a food processor or blender and whizzing it up.

Just pop in the aubergine flesh, roughly chopped cooked beetroot (I used one that was about half the weight of the uncooked aubergine), garlic, lemon juice, tahini, ground cumin, salt and pepper.

You can add a glug of extra virgin olive oil if you like. But I usually find that the oil in the tahini is sufficient.

And that’s it.

Your Aubergine & Beetroot Moutabal is ready to serve.

Beautiful as it is, I think a sprinkle of toasted black and white sesame seeds plus Aleppo pepper really sets it off.

Add a drizzle of olive oil and some mint leaves too if you like.

SERVING & STORING

Full of flavour, the moutabal is great just with crunchy raw veg to dip in plus maybe some flatbread.

I think the rainbow colours of carrots, peppers and cucumbers against the dark pink of the moutabal make it look especially appealing.

I also love Aubergine & Beetroot Moutabal as a filling in a wrap.

Here I spread some on one of my Quick Flatbreads (no yeast) then topped it with salad and a drizzle of garlicky and minty yogurt.

This was lovely with some slices of griddle halloumi in there too!

So easy to make, Aubergine & Beetroot Moutabal would be great as one of feast of small, mezze type dishes. Try it alongside some of these:

**Have you made Aubergine & Beetroot Moutabal?**