Baba Ghanouj Pizza

I had the most amazing weekend. Once I have had a chance to process it I will tell you all about it.

In the meantime, here is an idea I had for pizza that actually turned out pretty good. I had the pizza dough all ready to make regular pizza, and eggplants were on sale at Treasure Island. I bought two with the thought of making baba ghanouj with it.

I think I must have been preoccupied with something when I roasted the eggplant, though, because it didn't cook quite enough. It was soft enough to scoop out of the skin, but it resisted the masher and didn't come together the way it should. Instead of stopping then and there, when I could still cook it more before adding the rest of the ingredients, I just threw them all in, like I thought the friction of stirring it all together would cook it the rest of the way.

Hah. I didn't really think that. I don't know what I was thinking.

But I had a batch of basically inedible baba ghanouj. (Have you tried eating undercooked eggplant? Not like your usual crudite, I can assure you.)

I also had an as-yet-unused ball of pizza dough in the refrigerator. I had already been playing with the idea of cooking the crust and then adding the baba ghanouj cold, so it actually wasn't that big of a stretch to put the baba ghanouj on the pizza before cooking it, and letting the oven finish the process.

It came out of the oven looking pretty good, I must say. It was a touch bland, however. Not sure why, but it needed something.

I threw together some chopped parsley, lemon zest, garlic and a little olive oil and made a quick batch of gremolata to spread over the top of my pizza. That did the trick.

I have recently been reading about Middle Eastern pizza. I guess I jumped the gun with this, but it was really good. I wish I could say the same of all of my mistakes.

I started to write up the recipe, and then I realized that all of the ingredients in this pizza come premade, and I have already blogged about them. So here's the method:

BABA GHANOUJ PIZZA
Mix up a batch of pizza dough. Let it rise, either for a couple of hours or overnight in the refrigerator (my preferred method). Either when you are ready to make the pizza, or up to a day before, make the baba ghanouj.

When you are ready to make the pizza, roll out the dough and bake it for 4 minutes in a 450 deg. F. well pre-heated oven. Remove from the oven and spread the baba ghanouj generously over the dough. Bake for another 15 minutes or so, until the crust is done to your liking. Remove from the oven and sprinkle gremolata over the top. Tabbouleh would probably also be good, if you wanted to stay more true to the ethnicity of the region.