Claudia Roden and her cooking stories

Claudia Roden writes more than simple recipes, but stories about cultures and old good times. Despite her multicultural, mostly European life, she continued to keep part of her heart connected to the colourful Middle Eastern cuisine whose stories she's telling over and over again.

Why to bake garlic?

As I can hardly resist to add more than 2 cloves of garlic to almost every salty meal, this question does not make too much sense for me. What do you mean by that? Why not baking garlic?

For turning the page to very serious problems, baked garlic is a good idea for eliminating the surplus of water and to make its cooking smoothly. 

The following tip I got while looking reading my Middle Eastern recipes about how to prepare tahini. Thus, I started the cooking by unpeeling the garlic and placing it on the tray of the oven for about 10 minutes. 

The next stop, in the mixer, together with the other ingredients of the tahini.

Baba Ghanoush: Need a new try

I used to be a very spoiled kid: when I wanted something, I didn't neet too much time to waite for. Professionally wise, when I wanted to reach something, I set up objectives able to be fulfilled, based on my experience and my skills.

With cooking...well, it is a different story. First, I need more experience. Second, I need more attention and focus. Third, all I want is to put some new skills on trial, while trying to make my happy family happier. 

The first objective is to get more experience, using the relative window of opportunity of enjoying, for the first time in my life, the free time to spend with my family. 

The last week, I wanted to try the Baba Ghanoush, following the recipe from the same book I am reading and following carefully, at least for the next month or so. 

The first step was to go buying:

2 big eggplants, of around 750 gr.

Tahini paste - out of which I used around 80 ml.

Garlic - 3 finely chopped cloves

1 bunch of fresh parsley

Olive oil

1 lemon - to be turned into juice

Black pepper

The longest time was dedicated to cooking the eggplants - almost one hour, at the oven heated at 250 degrees. After, the flesh is separated from the cover and put in the mixer, together with the garlic, tahini, pepper, salt and pepper. After another 10 minutes, you have a paste, where do you add and mix the rest of the ingredients. With some fresh pita, you can have a taste of the colourful Middle East.

My problem was that I had too much eggplant and not too much Tahini, for example. Or garlic.

Also, you need to eat it very fast, after maximum two days, as eggplants need to be consumed fresh.

Will try once again soon! Maybe another recipe and with some advices guidance. And looking for a place in Berlin to have a tasty experience...