Ingredients
1 cup garlic cloves (4 1/2 ounces; 130g)
2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt (for table salt, use 1 teaspoon)
1/4 cup (60g) fresh juice from about 2 lemons, divided
1/4 cup (60g) ice water, divided
3 cups (600g) neutral oil, such as grapeseed or canola, divided
If there’s one thing you should know about making baba ganoush, it’s this: Cook your eggplants until they’re done, then cook them some more. Your eggplants should be deeply charred and completely tender, collapsing at the slightest touch and giving no resistance when poked with a toothpick or knife. When you lift them from their stem caps with a pair of tongs, they should hang completely limp, like deflated hot-air balloons. A good rule of thumb? Cook them until you think they’re burnt beyond saving, and that’s when you’re good to go.
When cooking the eggplant, one of our primary goals is developing some nice smoky flavor. This comes from the charring of the skin and requires the intense radiation of a broiler or a direct flame. If you’ve got an outdoor grill, that’s your best bet; you want to carefully turn the eggplant directly on the flame until it is soft and charred. Otherwise, a broiler will do.
