How to Roast and Cook Eggplant. Roasting and cooking eggplant is SO easy, have no fear! This oven method is for those of you that don't have grills or open fires that are required to traditionally roast eggplant and get it ready for Baba Ganoush!
Pre-heat your oven to 400 °F. Wash the outside of the eggplant. Slice in half length-wise.
Slice the inner side of the eggplant halves across on a diagonal one way, then slice across the eggplant the opposite direction, making a diamond pattern. This allows the heat to get into the eggplant deeper and get a richer roasted flavour.
Drizzle 2-3 tbsp of olive oil over each half, rubbing it into the cracks and crevices.
Sprinkle with the flaked sea salt .
Place CUT SIDE UP on a large baking sheet. Roast in the oven for 40-45 minutes, until the eggplant starts to brown and soften.
Once the eggplant is really soft, turn on your broil element. You can flip the eggplant and broil the skin to infuse some more smoky flavour and then flip and broil the top. The skin can take a lot of heat without burning the inside flesh of the eggplant, but when broiling the top watch to make sure that it gets browned to your liking and doesn't burn. You can broil the skin until it bubbles and gets crispy, that will really impart great flavour.
Remove and cool so that it's just warm to the touch. Scoop out the interior of the eggplant and use as desired.
Notes
You can cook the eggplant to an even darker colour than this if wanted.