"Skordalia"

A nearby Turkish restaurant has this outrageous garlic dip. It's like a white fluffy cloud that looks like frosting, but tastes like a magical merry-go-round of garlic. Like, the spinning horses are made of hundreds of cloves of garlic, painted gold. I don't really know where I'm going with this but... it's good stuff, that's all I'm saying. I could never quite figure out how it was made. Texturaly, it was kinda meringue-like. When I saw this recipe, I got excited because I thought maybe I had found the recipe for my favorite mystery garlic dip.

The Recipe:

I feverishly googled Skordalia, and the pictures did not quite look like the garlic cloud dip. Skordalia looked thicker, like mashed potatoes. I was determined to find the specifics of the fluffy dip, and eventually found a garlic dip called Toum. It looked just like what I had eaten at my favorite Turkish restaurant. It has similarities to a mayonnaise or aioli, but with no eggs. Skordalia is characterized by the addition of potatoes, nuts, or wet bread. For realsies, there is much differentiation when it comes to garlic dips.

Anyway... it wasn't the dip for which I'd hoped, but whatever. I mean, a dip made of soggy bread? Sounds so very Bay Leaves (in that it doesn't seem like it will work AT ALL). We totally have to make it.

The Players:

After I got everything out, I had to go back and read the recipe several times. I had never followed a recipe quite like this, especially one that claimed garlic could nearly disappear. The garlic made sure to let me know that it isn't a magician, it's an illusionist. Whatever you say, garlic. I set Tim to work this time, and instructed him to grind up the fresh garlic in the mortar and pestle. I momentarily wondered which was which, the mortar or the pestle, and had to look it up. I learned that mortar derives from Latin mortarium, "receptacle for pounding" and "product of grinding or pounding". The Latin pistillum, meaning "pounder" led to English pestle. It all makes sense. *Giggles* Gawd, Latin, you're such a perv (or maybe it's just me).

It took a good 10 minutes to get the garlic broken down. Tim and I took turns working the garlic and peeling crusts off bread.

Soaked bread is not an ingredient I have used frequently, but we know from previous experience that it is something Wren is in to. Unfortunately for her, she was napping during this preparation. I briefly tossed two slices of bread at a time into a bowl of water, which all felt very strange. Maybe this recipe was conceived by inventive foodie river ducks, who have an entire food group devoted to soggy bread. "Oh Bill, what shall we have as an afternoon snack?" "Ah, my dear, well a smallish child hath thrown us this wet piece of stale hotdog bun, I daresay we dab it with some caviar and crème fraîche, old chap!" All ducks are British, by the way.

I started whirring the wads of bread in the mixer at a low speed. Then added the remaining ingredients as instructed. To our shock, the dip was looking smooth and creamy, and smelling pretty delicious.

I think anyone would assume this dip was cream based at first glance. It looked and poured a lot like an alfredo sauce. I wanted to find something fairly neutral to dip into it, and I had some yellow squash which served that very purpose. Timmy, you're up!

I think by "mild," Tim meant "in need of salt." My first taste I immediately decided to add another pinch of salt. I have to say, this was really quite delicious, but SUPER. EFFING. GARLICKY. I mean, not only was the garlic raw, but it was also crushed, which took it to level 8000 garlic. It was very tasty, but like 3 seconds after I'd swallowed a bite, I knew I was doomed to garlic mouth for the rest of the day, or maybe the rest of my life. We polished off the yellow squash slices and moved on with our day, but let's just say, the Skordalia stayed with us.

The following evening, I spread little dollops of the dip onto slices of zucchini and stuck them under the broiler as a snack experiment. The dip behaved much like cheese under the broiler, turning golden brown on top and kinda melty/crispy. It was still very strong even after being hit with some heat. I think if I make this again, obviously I would use less garlic or perhaps roasted garlic. I might add some other flavors like paprika and mustard powder to make an interesting cheese substitute. This could be a delicious dairy free casserole topper or garlic bread spread because of it's interesting behavior under the broiler.

Who knew bread could do this?! Not I. One of the reasons I decided to take this cookbook journey was the hope of discovering something like this, something totally new to me. Previously, I may not have realized that I was limiting what I could learn about cooking by only ever cooking things that sounded good, safe, or easy. Thank you for these miraculously educational (and sometimes gross) kitchen adventures, dear BAY LEAVES!