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2 lb. eggplant

2 cups (7-8 oz.) walnuts or pecans

¾ tsp. salt

⅛ tsp. pepper

1 to 4 cloves garlic, pureed

4 to 6 squirts hot sauce

¼ tsp. ground allspice

1 tsp. fresh grated ginger or ¼ tsp. powdered ginger

½ to 1 cup tasty extra-virgin olive oil

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1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut off green cap(s), wash, and place eggplant(s) on a baking sheet. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until soft to the touch.

2. Grind walnuts in a food processor until they resemble coarse cornmeal.

3. Add salt, pepper, garlic, hot sauce, allspice, and ginger to the food processor. Blend a bit. Scrape eggplant out of skins, add the flesh to the food processor, and mix until desired consistency.

4. Remove mixture from the food processor, add to a bowl, and pour olive oil in a thin stream while mixing. Taste and correct seasoning before serving.

1 It doesn't look like it, but this is the hardest part of the recipe. First, you have to find eggplant that don't look like they've been used as soccer balls. Then you have to cook them. It's tougher than it looks: I've experienced wildly varying amounts of time until the eggplant is done, even accounting for shape and size. Why? Dunno; maybe the eggplant have varying amounts of water in them? Anyway, you want some browning, but you want some eggplant left too. I stick holes in them with a fork to help the baking along. I've cut them up too, but you lose a lot of the flesh that way to char. But too much cooking is better than not enough. If you don't cook them enough, the caviar is bland and yucky. Do it right, and the eggplants come out naturally sweet and flavorful.

2 The original recipe calls for walnuts. I substituted some pecans once, and liked the taste: the pecans accentuated the natural sweetness of the eggplant. I think next time the ideal would be a mixture of the two, as too much pecan didn't taste right.

3 You'll probably need more salt, but start here and work your way up. And even if you're a garlic-head, it is possible to get too much garlic in. Grate your fresh ginger on a Microplane (What? You don't have a Microplane! Well, go buy one; you'll thank me later).

4 I'm not just busting your balls here: I think food-processing olive oil makes it taste bitter. So put the mixture in a bowl, add the oil, and stir by hand. How much oil? Not so much that you have loose olive oil floating around, but enough that it tastes good. I don't usually bother to measure; I just start pouring in olive oil, mixing, and occasionally tasting. At some point I realize I've stopped tasting and started eating; that's when it's ready. :)

I usually serve this with carbohydrates for dipping, my favorite being the "Mini" size of Stoned Wheat Thins.