Cold Eggplant Dip

Name: Cold Eggplant Dip
Yield: 8
Cuisine: Signature Cuisine,Ukrainian
Ingredients: Aubergine/Eggplant: 6; Помидор свежий: 200 g of; Garlic: 2 cloves of; Salt: to taste; Apple vinegar: to taste; Extra Virgin olive oil: to taste

Features:

Cuisine:

1 h 15 min
Serves 8
Easy

Ingredients

6 Aubergine/Eggplant
200 g of Помидор свежий
2 cloves of Garlic
to taste Salt
to taste Apple vinegar
to taste Extra Virgin olive oil

Directions

My mother always made this eggplant salad when I was little and now I make it myself all the time. Mom calls it cold eggplant dip and grinds the vegetables with a meat grinder. I like chopped vegetables the best when you can feel the small pieces. Such salad is also quite popular in Romania. Recently my colleague and I were discussing it. In this recipe, I give you the Romanian version of its serving.

It is delicious, very summery and healthy!

Bon Appétit!

You can prepare eggplants for this salad in two ways, boiling them in salted water or baking them in the oven (or grilling it, if possible!). If you cook at home, I recommend baking them as it’s more convenient. If you decide to boil the eggplants, you will need to put them under a heavy weight for 30 minutes to drain the excess moisture.

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Steps

1 Done	Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
2 Done	Wash the eggplants, cut off their tails and prick them in several places with a fork. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Place the eggplants at a distance of 3 to 5 cm from each other and bake them for about 1 hour. Then check if the eggplants are done. The eggplants should be very soft.
3 Done	Take them out and let them cool down to room temperature. Then, peel the skin and finely chop them. Dice the tomatoes into small cubes. Then, finely chop the garlic and add it with tomatoes to the eggplants. Mix them and season with salt, a generous amount of olive oil and apple cider vinegar to taste, 1 to 2 tsp. After that, place them in the fridge.
4 Done	Serve the dish cold on a hot day. It can be served as a salad or as an appetizer. It is also good to make bruschetta with this salad. The Romanian variant of its serving is as follows: Add chopped sweet onions. If onions are too bitter, you can marinate them in cold water with sugar and vinegar (1:2) for 30 minutes. Serve it with coarsely sliced tomatoes separately.
5 Done	Store in the fridge for about 4 to 5 days. Cooked, chopped eggplant you can freeze and enjoy this salad in the winter! My Romanian colleagues say it's one of their main freeze-dried winter vegetables.
6 Done	To freeze: bake eggplants or, better yet, grill them to preserve the "smoke" for the winter. Then chop them finely, put in a freezer bag and freeze them. Before serving, defrost eggplants at room temperature and dress them according to the recipe.