Daring Cooks: Mezze

The challenge for this month was MEZZE, essentially Middle Eastern tapas. The only requirement was to make both hummus and pita, following the given recipes. Everything else was just for fun!

Hummus:

Now, I make hummus frequently so it was strange to follow a recipe. I used dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and then boiled. To make things more interesting, I added pistachios to the hummus which gave it a bit of a green tinge. Overall, I much prefer my hummus; I only used about half of the called for lemon juice and it was still tarter than I'd have made it. The pistachios gave it an interesting, nutty (obviously) flavor but also made it a bit grainy. The garlic (and this was a problem throughout ALL the dishes) was pretty hot, probably more so that the recipes had anticipated… very stinky!

Pita:

THIS was fun. The recipe had you make a sponge first which I think really added to the flavor of the pitas. It also specified that the sponge be stirred 100 times in the same direction! I'm not convinced that made a difference, but the dough turned out great.

I started rolling the dough out a bit too thin and learned that too-thin pitas DO NOT PUFF in the oven. Still tasty, but not pita.

 

Keeping them under a towel kept them soft, just like tortillas. I love bread….

Feta:

This was an improvisation. I'd been wanting to try grilled Haloumi cheese but there was none to be found. Instead, I baked a block of cow's milk feta (not traditional but I loathe goat and sheep's milk cheese) with canned tomatoes and oregano. It's incredible on any kind of bread.

Tabouli:

Kat and I differ in our tabouli preferences. I like LOTS of parsley (apparently that's a Lebanese tradition) and Kat likes hers with mostly bulgur (like most of the rest of the Arab region). This was definitely MY tabouli. The tomatoes were canned as I can't bring myself to buy the cardboard imitations in the winter. (Photos of this down in the shots of the whole spread.)

Red Pepper Walnut Dip:

I made this with Kat in mind - it has so many of her favorite things in it. Despite that, something about it (texture? acidity? ???) hurt her mouth when she ate it. Sure was pretty though. I had no whole bell peppers so I tried to roast some that I had sliced and frozen over the summer. In theory, a good way to use up a lot of peppers. In practice… a lot of time spent peeling individual pepper slices.

Tzatziki:

Or raita, depending on what cuisine you're looking at. Toasting the cumin seeds gave the dip a very smoky flavor… I could slather this stuff on just about anything.

Falafel:

These tasted great… I'm not a huge fan of the texture of falafel but Kat enjoys them. I ended up baking these instead of frying to cut down on the smell and the fat. Fried falafels are definitely tastier, but baked is not too bad.

Dolmathes:

These were a cheat… I'd made them months ago and frozen them. I stuff the grape leaves with a rice/ground beef mixture with some raisins and spices. Everything is cooked in a lemon broth until they are plump and the flavors have blended.

Baba Ghanouj:

Of the whole meal, this and the pita were my favorites. I roasted the eggplant in the oven - next time I'll try it on the grill to see if it gets a smokier flavor. It turned out so incredibly creamy and light, not very eggplanty (for those of us who don't really revel in eggplant as a general rule) with a good kick of garlic.

The spread:

This was such a fun meal to prepare, with so many little things to work on. The garlic was pretty overwhelming throughout all the dishes though. We use garlic grown by Kat's dad and some varieties are considerably stronger than others so I'm guessing this was one of those varieties. Definitely NOT date-night food!

The 2010 February Daring COOKs challenge was hosted by Michele of Veggie Num Nums. Michele chose to challenge everyone to make mezze based on various recipes from Claudia Roden, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugid.

The recipes for Pita, Hummus, Red Pepper Walnut Dip and Falafel are courtesy of Veggie Num Nums.