Dips

I had my family round yesterday and spent most of Saturday and half of Sunday cooking for them, it’s a complete and utter joy for me to do that and I’d love to do it more often, it’s just that work commitments and space ‘issues’ sometimes get in the way.
Nothing makes me happier than having all four of my children around my table and I’m lucky enough to not only have my parents, but my adorable Grand-mother too who is 97 years old!

Humous is a real family favourite of ours at our big Greek parties. We love it! Plain with pitta bread, sometimes topped with a few whole chickpeas and ground cumin, or as I made it yesterday, topped with small lamb cubes and pomegranate.

It’s such a pretty dish! The jewel of the pomegranate and the sweet sour tang of the molasses really lift it to another level.

Humous topped with lamb cubes, pomegranate and pomegranate molasses.
(Makes 1 large serving bowl, suitable as part of a buffet/meal)

2 x 410g tins of chickpeas
4 tbsp tahini
30ml olive oil
4 cloves garlic, crushed
Juice of two lemons
Pinch of salt
A little water or plain yoghurt (or both)

300g lamb, boneless, in small cubes.
1tsp oil (vegetable is fine, or olive)
Pomegranate seeds (from half a pomegranate)
1-2 tbsp pomegranate molasses.

Whizz up the chickpeas, tahini, oil, garlic, lemon juice and salt in a little whizzing machine 😉

Alter the consistency to your liking using a little water, or yoghurt, or both. Yoghurt seems to lighten the texture making it paler in colour, while water just makes it more liquid.

Fry the lamb cubes until just cooked through in a teaspoon of oil.

Top the humous with the lamb, pomegranate and the molasses.

So pretty!

Where would we be without our dips? Pitta bread would be a lot less exciting, that’s for sure! The same goes for Greek salad. Slathering it with cool, creamy tsatsiki takes it to a whole other level!

The Greek dips I make regularly are:

1. Humous
2. Tsatsiki and
3. Tahinosalata.

Humous:

Take one tin of chickpeas, drain, then place in a food processor with 2 tbsp tahini, the juice of 2 lemons, salt and 30ml olive oil. Whiz until smooth. Add more salt or lemon juice to taste. If I want a lighter humous I add a little yoghurt alla Nigella.
Top with a few whole chickpeas and a little ground cumin or paprika.

Tsatsiki:

Take one tub (500g) of Greek yoghurt, grate half a cucumber on the large shred side of the grater (or cut into tiny pieces, about the same size as a chickpea 🙂 ) Squeeze between your fingers to remove the watery liquid and add to the yoghurt.
Crush 2 cloves of garlic and add, also a little salt, a tbsp of olive oil, and about 1 tbsp dried mint.

Tahinosalata:

You will need one jar of tahini. Place in a processor with the juice of 3 lemons, 30ml olive oil, salt, 3 cloves crushed garlic and about 50ml water. Whiz up until smooth. Then check whether it needs a little more salt, water or lemon.
Top with plenty of chopped flat leaf parsley.