Olive oil seals the deal.
Last June I made mutubal shawandar, which despite its garish color exacerbated by my bad food photography, was light, lovely, and incredibly refreshing in the height of the humid season.
This week I embarked on a brief vegan challenge with my favorite masshole Zach and therefore was limited in what Syrian recipes I could test. Not that there's any dearth of vegetable-heavy dishes in that country's culinary canon, for as in many Western nations, Syrians use meat more often for garnish and flavoring rather than as the main event.
Mutubal is as simple to make as mutubal shawandar as the former swaps out beets for roasted eggplant. It should be noted that eggplants are not in season. It should also be noted that I do not care because I LOVE EGGPLANT AND NO ONE WILL STOP ME FROM EATING IT. This is basically me:
Mucho credit to Cousin Phil at Deviant Art.
But I otherwise I really try to eat what's in season, I swear. Here is a short and sweet recipe for mutubal, adapted from FashionEdible.
INGREDIENTS
2 cups roasted eggplant (chopped)
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons tahini
1/2 cup plain yogurt (or silken tofu if you're on a vegan challenge)
1/2 lemon (juiced)
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Slice eggplant into discs no thicker than one half inch.
Coat each disc liberally with salt and arrange them so they line the insides of a colander.
"Sweat" eggplant slices for approximately 15 minutes. Rinse and pat dry.
Arrange eggplant on foil-lined baking sheet and spritz with olive oil spray. Roast in oven for 20-30 minutes.
Remove eggplant from oven and chop into cube-size pieces.
Combine eggplant with garlic, tahini, yogurt, and lemon juice in a food processor or blender. Pulse into smooth.
Garnish with olive oil.