aubergine caviar

Hosting a party is no easy task. The house needs to be cleaned, tables need to be set, drinks need to be stationed and of course - food needs to be cooked. Many of us will be hosting parties leading up to Christmas so my next few posts will be dedicated to easy, stress-free apps to please your guests until the main course. Although I want to take credit for all of these recipes, the man behind these creations is none other than the most featured chef on this blog - Gordon Ramsay.

(aubergine aka eggplant)

This may be disappointing to some but there is no caviar in this dip - the "caviar" is a play on the eggplant's seeds. Fret not though because this aubergine (eggplant) caviar is delicious. I was surprised to find that people who didn't even like eggplant enjoyed this dip so even your pickiest guests may end up liking this dish. Also, the dip can be made a day or two in advance (because something always goes wrong the day of right?) and I think it tastes better as it ages in the fridge. Want more good news? It's pretty cheap to make so you can use that extra cash for nicer Christmas presents, mutual funds, New Years money (where my Asians at?), random *coughbullshit* $100 school fees or whatever you like to do with your money.

Aubergine Caviar

Adapted from Gordon Ramsay

Ingredients

- 2 eggplants

- 2 cloves of garlic

- a bunch of thyme and rosemary

- 1/2 cup sour cream

- juice of 1 lemon

- handful of cilantro

- salt/pepper

- extra-virgin olive oil

1) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Split the eggplant in half and score the inside with a knife making a criss-cross pattern. Split the garlic cloves in half and with each cut-side half, rub all over the inside of the eggplant.

2) Using the stalks of the rosemary and thyme, stuff each half of the eggplant with both herbs. The rosemary sprigs shouldn't pose any trouble but if thyme is giving you a hard time, place them in between the crevices that were created when you scored the eggplant. Drizzle the eggplants with extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle salt over evenly.

3) Put together each half of the eggplant until it becomes one or "whole" again and wrap it around in foil. Bake in a 400 degrees F preheated oven for 40 minutes until the eggplant becomes soft.

4) Take the eggplant out of the oven and let it cool until it's warm enough to handle. Remove the tough stalks of the rosemary/thyme while keeping all the leaves. Using a spoon, scrape out the inside of the eggplant. Don't worry about little flakes of skin that may come off. Just make sure you get all of the delicious innards out.

5) Using a knife, chop the eggplant mixture until fine. It's probably more helpful to actually watch his demo for this part but you pretty much chop the hell out of the eggplant mixture and once it spreads out, you just fold it over itself and just chop it again until you get a fine consistency. It's gonna look ugly as hell right now but it's okay - it'll look tasty in just a sec here. (it smells awesome in your house right now doesn't it?)

6) Add olive oil to a hot pan and scoop in the eggplant mixture. Cook it out for 30 seconds to 1 minute tossing a few times to cook out any excess moisture that was left inside the eggplant. Remove to a bowl.

7) Cut out a small handful of cilantro and chop fine. Add to the eggplant mixture along with the juice of 1 lemon. Mix.

8) Add 1/2 cup (or more) of sour cream to the dip and mix again until mixed throughout. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until needed.

Serve with bread sticks, toasted baguette or heck even Tostitos if you want to.