Try this Greek Eggplant Dip

When George Pagonis asks for charred, he means charred. As in so burned it’s barely recognizable. That’s the case, anyway, with eggplant, the main ingredient in the melitzanosalata at Kapnos, the Greek restaurant he co-owns in Washington.

“Hands down, it’s our best-selling spread,” Pagonis says. The cooks go through 75 large eggplants a day, blackening them for a full hour on the wood-fired grill. Anyone who has applied smoke to eggplant knows the alchemy that results.

What’s an indoor (or propane-loving) cook to do? Pagonis scoffed at the thought, but a broiler and a pinch of a decidedly non-Greek ingredient – Spanish smoked paprika – can achieve an almost-as-good result.