So when you go to a middle eastern restaurant or your neighborhood falafel joint, what is your go to order?  For me, it’s usually Baba ganoush – the classic Middle Eastern smoked eggplant condiment that is sometimes made with pomegranate, cumin and olive oil.  I really like it better than its more popular companion hummus, as its smoky flavor is very unique and savory.  Mostly though, I think it’s just the eggplant itself that I love.  So when I saw these two gorgeous Italian eggplants at Whole Foods the other day – I thought that making some sort of dip or pesto was the way to go.

This recipe was somewhat inspired from an eggplant dip that Elise, Aimee and I sampled at Stone Hearth Pizza, an excellent pizza place in the Boston area.  They use a bunch of cumin in their dip (or so it tasted like) – so I too that advice and used some cumin seed that I toasted and then ground in a mortar and pestle. 

Taking some more ideas from traditional Genovese basil pesto, I also decided to add some pine nuts, lemon and a bit of Parmesan.

The result paired really well with the Salmon that I picked up at the fish market, but it left me wishing that I had made some more to have with carrots, pita or tortilla chips.  One of the secrets of this recipe has to be the roasted garlic (been a theme for me lately), which makes this dip really creamy, as well as helps that flavor.  In any case, I’ll definitely be making this again and probably buying some eggplant and spinning this up and filling up empty hummus containers.  This stuff would also go awesome with other types of fish or even on a roast beef sandwich.  Give it a shot!

• 2 large Italian or other type of Eggplant
• 5 large garlic cloves
• small handful parsley – stems removed
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice – fresh squeezed
• 1/3 c. pine nuts – toasted in a small skillet
• 2 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese – fresh grated
• 1 tsp. cumin – toasted and crushed cumin seeds are best!!
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 6-8 pomegranate seeds (optional) – I’ll try using them when I make this again!

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Prepare the eggplant by poking a few holes in each with a knife and placing them whole in a small roasting plan to just fit them.  In the same roasting pan, take the garlic cloves and place them in a small square of aluminum foil and drizzle a touch of olive oil on them.  Wrap the cloves up in the foil and place in the roasting pan alongside the eggplant.  Place in the oven and roast for around 45 minutes to an hour, or until the eggplant’s skin is wrinkled and the insides are soft.

Once the eggplant is done, remove it from the oven and unwrap the garlic from the foil.  Peel the garlic from its skins and place the soft cloves in your food processor.  Once the eggplant has cooled enough to touch, peel the skin off (if should peel off easily), chop it roughly and place in the food processor too.

Add the parsley, toasted pine nuts, lemon juice, olive oil, Parmesan and salt and pepper and blend the ingredients together until almost smooth. 

Stop the food pro and add in the cumin and more salt and pepper as needed.  Serve on top or under a good protein like salmon or halibut or alongside home made pita chips.

I decided to serve it with pan roasted salmon and parsley oil, which really enhanced the flavor of the eggplant.  Here’s that little bonus recipe – totally great with so many things:

• large bunch of parsley – leaves only, stems removed and washed
• 3/4 – 1 c. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice (not traditional, but I love its addition!)

Put parsley and lemon juice in a blender and slowly drizzle olive oil in while the blender is running.  Should turn into smooth oil with an awesome bright green color.

Don’t let me fool you, this recipe is rather rich and rather French.  If you’ve never poached fish, go ahead and try it with a fish with a fairly high fat content like Salmon, Sea Bass or Sardines even.  It’s tougher to overcook and will stand up better to this cooking process.

Salmon is always a tough protein for me to judge.  I think everyone can relate to walking into the supermarket or fish monger and seeing the typical two types of salmon staring you in the face.  You have the more commonly found farmed salmon, which as we know allegedly get ‘dyed’ with pink dye to look like the real thing.  Then there’s the wild stuff, which usually doesn’t look as good as the farmed to the naked eye.  The wild stuff is usually about double the price too, so how is someone supposed to decide?

Well I usually go with the wild salmon, as I think it just tastes better, but I will buy farmed too – it’s still delicious if you can get past the whole dye thing.  A note about wild salmon is that in many cases, it doesn’t need to be cooked as long.  We got some wild Sockeye salmon for this recipe and it literally was done in 5 minutes.  You don’t want to overcook salmon, and while it can be hard to do this when poaching, a nice medium rare is really what you’re looking for.

Chanterelles on the other hand are such a treat when they are around.  You can usually find them dried year round, but are only fresh on the shelf for a short period (right around Oct-Dec they’re exquisite!).  Chanterelles are wild mushrooms harvested from the forest floor and usually grow very well in the pacific northwest.  Their flavor is very potent, almost resembling truffles – just taking a good sniff of a ripe Chanterelle will let you know that this is a rich ingredient.  If you do happen upon some, make sure they’re in really good shape before you buy them, they’re not worth the money otherwise (usually around $25/pound…no joke).

I decided to poach some salmon and make a little Chanterelle pan sauce and serve it over the salmon.  This is also one of those meals that is fairly simple and easy to make, but it will make you look like you’ve been slaving away for hours.

• Fillet of salmon – .4-.5 Lb per person (this recipe serves 4 people – so 1.75 fillet is perfect) – cut into steaks.
• 1 lb. Chanterelle Mushrooms (use less if you want) – chopped lengthwise and leave them fairly big!  you want the pieces to be big enough to chew!
• 1 1/2 c. Fish/seafood stock
• 1/2 c. white wine – a decent chardonnay or sauvignon blanc
• 1 medium yellow onion – julienned or sliced into half moon shapes
• 2 cloves garlic – roughly chopped
• 7-8 sprigs of Thyme – leaves left on
• 1 Tbsp. Dijon Mustard
• 1/2 Cream (1/2 and 1/2 works fine too)
• 2-3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• 3 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• Salt and pepper to taste

Start by heating your butter in a medium-sized pan over medium heat.  Add in the Chanterelles and cook, browning the mushrooms a little bit but be sure not to burn them or overcook!  Some juices from the mushrooms will be released, just leave that in the pan.  Remove the mushrooms from the pan, leaving the juices behind and set them aside.

Lower the heat a little bit and add the onion garlic and thyme sprigs to the pan and cook quickly.  You don’t want them to get any color whatsoever.  Add in the stock and wine next and use a utensil to pick up any mushroom bits that get stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Add in the salmon (there should be enough liquid to cover the fish) and cover the pan.  Monitor the Salmon though, it will cook pretty fast.  You want it to be medium rare as I mentioned before, to if necessary, use a fork to check its doneness.  When it’s finished cooking, remove it from the pan, leaving the poaching liquid.

Turn the heat up to medium-high and let the liquid cook off and reduce by half to 3/4.  You then want to strain the liquid through a sieve into a separate bowl (don’t let this go down the drain!!!).  Bring the heat down to low and add the liquid back to the pan.  Add in the Dijon mustard, cream lemon juice and salt and pepper to the mixture and bring to a gentle boil.  You want this to cook for a little while and thicken into more of sauce like consistency.  Add 1/2 of the Chanterelles back into the sauce.

To serve, ladle a puddle of the sauce onto the middle of a plate and place the salmon in the middle on top of the sauce.  Put some chanterelles on top of the fish and a little sauce on top of them and serve!

Serves 4

Here are some more insane looking Chanterelles recipes!

- Herbivoracious: Bruchetta with Chanterelles and Brie
- CD Kitchen: Bucatini With Chanterelles, Spring Peas & Prosciutto
- RecipeZaar: Mashed Potatoes with Chanterelles and Truffle Oil