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Smoked Eggplant, Zucchini, and Tomato Toum Salad
Lots of smoke flavor from the eggplant and zucchini, the tomatoes and lemon juice bring a super fresh sweet acidity, finished with a bit of toum because, oh mama, serious deliciousness!
Servings 4
Ingredients
Smoked Eggplant and Zucchini
- 1 each eggplant
- 1 each zucchini
- 1 tbsp rosemary, chopped
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Tomato Toum Salad
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes
- 1 each lemon
- 1/4 cup toum (I made a quarter batch of this recipe)
Instructions
Smoked Eggplant and Zucchini
- Start your grill, this one requires charcoal or possibly a smoker box and some pre soaked wood chips (about 30 minutes), we're looking for a lower, indirect heat so I did half a chimney of charcoal.
- Slice your zucchini and eggplant into long thick strips, about 1 inch each side and the whole length of the zucchini or eggplant.
- Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and the chopped rosemary. Toss to make sure it's all coated.
- Put your coals to one side or in a basket on the side for indirect heat.
- Place your strips of eggplant and zucchini on the opposite side of the grill. Cover and cook about 15 minutes. Flip and let cook another 5 minutes or so. Watch the temperature, you're looking for around 350 and not more than 400.
- Toss a handful of soaked wood chips on the coals, cover again and let cook another 5 minutes or so, toss another handful of wood chips on and finish cooking another 5 minutes or so. You will end up with about 25 - 30 minutes of cooking, 20 minutes just cooking and 10 minutes smoking. You can do more smoking if you want the smoke but be warned, it's can be REALLY smoky! Remove from grill and proceed to making the salad.
Tomato Toum Salad
- Slice each strip of eggplant and zucchini into about 4 smaller strips and then slice thin. Add to a bowl.
- Rinse your cherry tomatoes and slice into similar sized chunks. Add to the bowl.
- Squeeze juice from the lemon over the salad. Taste and sprinkle with a bit more salt to taste. Top with a bit of toum, more for self service and enjoy this surprising and delicious combination of smoke, fresh, sweet, and GARLIC!
Notes
This was one of those recipes created out of necessity... total fail on a lightly smoked rosemary eggplant and zucchini dish, got distracted and smoked WAY too long, resulting in super intense smoky flavor. It was still a flavor that had potential but way too potent full strength. With as many lemons as I could need I tasted a smoke/lemon mix, needed a bit of sweet, had basket of deliciously sweet cherry tomatoes that were amazing and so fresh... needed a bit of other flavor to round it out and had some toum in the fridge... oh boy, NOW we've got something! Sometimes it just goes that way, what's the saying? "When life gives you over smoked eggplants, make a tomato, lemon, toum salad!" Well, something like that...