Eggplant relish

This was the first time I've made this eggplant relish, but it's a winner and I'll do it again. It went so well with the lamb shanks I served it with. This is yet another way to enjoy this versatile fruit - although the young lady of the house, who refuses to eat eggplant, didn't think so.

I got the idea for roasting the eggplant whole from Simply love food. This is an excellent food blog, and the photography is fantastic. The recipe I looked at was for baba ganoush, but I didn't have any tahini. So I used what I had an made a relish instead.

This recipe is a bit 'rustic, as I mashed the eggplant by hand. If you wanted to have a smoother relish, you could use a hand blender to mix everything together.

What you'll need

1 medium eggplant.
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
Salt and pepper
2 tsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp vegetable oil

What to do

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Prick the eggplant with a fork all over. Place it into the oven on a tray and bake for approximately 1 hour, until the eggplant is collapsed, wrinkled and grey-looking.

Remove the eggplant from the oven, and set aside on a plate to cool.

Meanwhile, Heat a small frying pan over low heat. Add the oil, onions and garlic. Saute very slowly until the onion and garlic is soft. You don't want to have the onions or garlic brown so keep stirring.

Once the onions and garlic are soft,
remove from the heat and set aside.

Slice eggplant length ways down the middle. Scoop out the soft flesh
into a bowl. Mash the eggplant with a fork (or use a hand blender) until to achieves the consistency you want. I wanted mine chunky, so I didn't mash it much.

Add the other ingredients and mix well. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside for the flavour to develop.

I served this with roasted lamb shanks and lemon potatoes. The lemony, smoky flavour of eggplant relish was a great contrast to the rich lamb and crunchy potatoes.

You could also use this relish spread on sandwiches with roasted chicken, at BBQs as a tasty sauce for grilled meats, or even as a dip for vegetables.

* I totally forgot to take any pictures of the relish once I'd make it (as I was too concerned with eating my lamb shanks) but you can see from the pictures above and below what it looked like.