Smoking Eggplant for Baba Ganoush

FrankieTSM

Does anybody have ideas on smoking Eggplant for making Baba Ganoush? I have a large BGE and am a newbie! I did a spatchcock chicken, which came out beautiful! But smoking is a whole different animal. Thanks for any help you can give!

Richard Fl

cut eggplant in half length wise set bge up @ 325-350 direct or not cook apprx 45 min til eggplnt is soft, scoop out eggplant do not use skin  mix w/ little olive oil, little lemon juice, zattar(optional) s/p mix coarsly, serve with pita bread and some hummus if available great with lamb if availble.sometimes some coarsly chopped tomato and/or red onion. if you like.

Ima_good_egg

Great looking bird!  For baba ganoush, I’ve always poked a bunch of holes in the eggplant, slow roasted indirect until squishy. 

20stone

+ 1 on @Richard Fl’s approach. We roast them whole on the egg for baingan bhartha, but splitting them will be faster. 

FrankieTSM

Thanks for the grilling advice! What I’m wondering about is SMOKING the eggplant. Whenever we order Baba Ganoush in a decent restaurant, there is always a smoky flavor to it. Instead of usin the fake chemical smoke, I want to use the BGE. But not sure how to go about it. I tried using the small apple chips, soaking them for 12 hrs beforehand. Maybe I used too few, as the smoke stopped after only a short time. Any advice?

vb4677

LOVE when the wife wants me to make this!  It is so deep and flavorful.  I halve them and smoke them cut side down until good and soft over a fruit wood like apple or cherry. 
We've experimented with prepping them with a little olive oil before but it just sort of soaks into the eggplant.  I do know that after I pull them off the LBGE, that she's had some trouble with separating the meat from the skins -and for the life of me I don't recall what she prefers.  But yeah, it is SO good when smoked! 

Richard Fl

Throw enough wood on like doing a whole chicken.