Summer Mezze

‘Leisurely eating’ 

Mezze (the word), as near as I can tell, comes from the persian mazīdan meaning taste, it also has a flavour of the work mix in the romance languages. The perfect mezze is therefore a mix of beautiful little dishes shared over a leisurely meal with friends. Most cultures in the mediteranian have a culture of meals like this and so I consider those whole shores as fair game. Of course you can put almost anything you like with a mezze these are a few of my favorites. It's also totally ok to buy some stuff, buy your houmous if you want, buy some flatbreads (good flatbreads exist almost as good as homemade), if you have a couscous salad you like buy it.  At its core a mezze is about generosity of choice and flavour. You have a little more freedom when choosing this because not everyone needs to like everything to have a satisfying meal. I love eating this way on a summer evening after i day where i had nothing on. What follows is a few of my favorite things to have with my mezze im including both things I make and things I buy. 

Olives and pickles

Olives are almost necessary for a mezze they have the quality of being nibbles. I encourage you away from jars, supermarkets these days usually have a good selection of fresh olives, in the bowl with  the olives i usually put pickled garlic and conichions. 

Semi dried sumac tomatoes 

Good quality small (cherry or plumb most likely) tomatoes 

Olive oil 

Salt (a heavy pinch)

sumac 

1. Carefully cut the tomatoes in half and toss them in a pinch of salt, leave them for about 10 minutes then drain. 

2. Toss the tomatoes in olive oil and a teaspoon of sumac then carefully arrange them cut side up on the tray.  Put them in the oven on low 90-110 for about two hours. 

3. Take them out of the oven they should be sweet and have an intensified flavour. Put them in a bowl.  

4. Thet them chill in the fridge try not to eat too many before you serve. 

Hummus 

Chickpeas (a tin of) 

Tahini (a teaspoon to start)

Lemon 

Garlic (crushed were going to blend it but it still needs crushing)

Olive oil 

Salt 

1. Drain your chickpeas but retain the juice. 

2. Add all the ingredients to a food processor  run the food processor until a paste forms get the texture you want by adding back some of the chickpea water and adding olive oil. Taste and season with salt, pepper. Add more lemon or olive oil as you like.  

Or just buy your hummus but it is so easy to make and so worth it.   

Cucumber and yogurt dip 

Cucumber (half the volume of the dip)

Yogurt  (half the volume of the dip)

Garlic 

Dill (or mint or both a supermarket bunch of)

Salt 

1. Cut your cucumber into small cubes and chop your dill finley, grate one piece of garlic. 

2. Stir everything together in a bowl then season with salt. 

Bread of some kind

Pita bread is widely available and perfectly acceptable.  I would avoid anything northern european eg. a baguette or rye bread but focaccia or ciabatta would be ok. I usually get what i call lebanese bread because there is a shop near me that sells extremely good leboneese bread. People seem to like making little wraps or filling little pockets. So i would consider something wrap-ey or fill-ey to be ideal.  

Fetta cheese 

In a perfect world you buy the good feta from your friendly olive and feta salesman in the market but the supermarket will also definitely sell you a block of perfectly acceptable quality. I like to serve mine dressed with chopped mint olive oil and black pepper.  

Greek salad(ish)

Absolutely essential    

Onion (slice into rings then quarters) 

Tomatoes (cubed)

Cucumber (cubed)

Mint (chopped)

Olive oil (extra virgin)

1. Salt the onions first and let them temper(not sure if this is the right word) for 10-15 minuets, this takes the sting out of the onion. 

2. Combine the rest of the ingredients. 

3. Optionally add some lemon juice and zest.  

Roast carrot 

Carrot 

Tahini 

Lemon 

Garlic (grated using microplane)

White wine vinigar 

1. Cut your carrot into batons roast until dark and caramelised 

2. Shake the tahini garlic and vinigar together. Use to dress the carrots.