Smoked aubergine puree
THIS may look like a bowl of beige sludge but boy oh boy it packs a flavour punch. There are lots of versions around, also known as Baba Ganoush, as it’s a staple of Mediterranean and North African cooking, and I have combined a few here but mostly the flavour bomb is the smoking of the aubergine. Shortly before lockdown I invested in a smoker – it’s a small, table-top model (not much bigger than a backpack) that can be easily stored in the shed – and I’ve been experimenting with cold-smoking, which is a low and slow way to infuse meat, fish and vegetables with that deep, smokiness that doesn’t come from a bottle like so many ‘smoked’ goods. The critical different between hot and cold smoking, unsurprisingly, is temperature. You can hot smoke foods in any closed-lid barbecue – it’s a guaranteed side benefit of cooking over charcoal. With hot smoking you are cooking AND smoking at the same time – the smoke is gener...