Snapshot

Great with bread.

Absoultely fabulous with a glass of chilled white wine!

(From bottom to top, click for recipe)

Peperona

Tapande

Hummus

Happy Deepavali to Indian readers and those celebrating!

Olive tapenade

Was totally blown away with the taste of this dip. So easy to make but oh so flavourful and just delicious. Makes me wished I learnt of this dip much earlier :)

Great with bread, crackers and also as a filling for palmiers (which is my next post).

Ingredients (recipe was adapted from combination of various cooks, can't remember which one now)

1 can black olives (pitted)
2 tbsp capers (rinsed)
2 anchovy fillets
3-4 cloves garlic
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
handful of parsley and basil leaves
2 tbsp lemon juice, to taste
freshly cracked pepper

Method:

Put everything into a food processor and pulse until required texture. Add more garlic, lemon juice and herbs to your preference.

Bench notes - Made this dip super smooth or chunky in texture *told ya this is a super yummy dip*. If using for filling, prefer the smooth texture. If serving with bread/crackers, chunky texture is preferred.

Use Italian Flat Leaf Parsley (instead of normal parsley) for more flavour otherwise will taste a little flat!

Red Pepper Hummus

Another SUPER QUICK AND EASY dip to make.

Use the ingredients as a guide. Hard to give full proof recipe as it really depends on how you like it. For example, we are a heavy garlic family and so I tend to add more than the recipe prescribes.

Best tip - Adding the lemon zest really brings out the flavour of this dip so much more.

Ingredients

1 can chickpea (can use fresh ones but don't forget to soak them before cooking)
2- 3 tbsp tahini (sesame paste)
1 lemon juice including zest (add sufficient juice according to your taste)
3-4 roasted cloves of garlic
Some fresh sweet basil leaves and flat leaves parsley (to taste)
Half red bell pepper or capsicum, roasted with charred skin removed

3-4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Pinch of cayenne pepper and/or paprika (to taste)
Pinch salt (to taste, if required)

Method:

1. Put all the ingredients (except herbs and seasonings) into food processor and blend until consistency you like – chunky or super smooth. Adjust lemon juice, herbs and spices according to your preference.

2. Serve at room temperature.

Roasted Peperona (Capsicum) Dip

Surprisingly, this turned out to be one of the 'hot favourite' dish that night. Only gripe was that I should have bought at least 2 baguette sticks instead of one.

This recipe is definitely a keeper and will probably be making more soon :)

Many thanks to Elaine for sharing this wonderful recipe.

Ingredients
2 medium yellow bell peppers or capsicum
2 medium red bell peppers or capsicum
1/4 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp capers (salt packed is best preferred)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/2 tsp dried red chile flakes
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 cup chopped parsley (used normal and flat leaf parsley)

Method:

1. Wash and dry peppers.
2. Put oven on broil.
3. Cut tops off peppers, cut peppers in half and remove seeds.
4. Lay a piece of foil on a baking sheet and lay peppers on sheet, skin side up. Broil until skin blackens. Place peppers in paper bag and let steam. Remove and let cool. Skins should slip off.
Chop peppers into small pieces. Set aside.
5. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Rinse the salt off the capers and dry capers (make sure you dry them otherwise....BECAREFUL - standback (way back) for oil splurts!!). Add the capers to the oil and fry for about one minute over medium heat.
6. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for a couple of minutes and then add onion, chile flakes and salt and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes.
7. Add the vinegar to the pan and deglaze, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan and then stir in the chopped peppers.
8. Adjust seasoning for more salt or vinegar. Add parsley.
9. Remove topping to a bowl and let cool. Do not refrigerate. Let sit at room temperature until ready to use.

Eggplant Dip (baba ghanoush)

This is one of my favourite middle eastern dips. We enjoy this so much that I started making this at least once a week - much tastier and cheaper than getting them off the racks. Usually served with pita bread but I much prefer eating this with sesame seed crackers.

Had a whole bag of eggplants - got 3 youn'ens earlier from Giant and then couldn't resist getting another bag from an organic shop since they were being sold at rm5 a bag.

Pssst....don't forget to add some cumin, just a bit makes a HUGE difference and so much more yummier and interesting!



Ingredients

eggplants
2 tbsp roasted tahini (sesame seed paste)
3 roasted garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
juice and zest of one lemon
pinch of salt (to taste)
pinch of cayenne pepper (to taste)
2 tbsp chopped cilantro

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Poke the washed eggplants with a fork all over and place on a baking sheet.


2. Roast eggplants and garlic (wrap in foil) until skin outside is chared and flesh inside is tender, about 35 min.

3. Scoop flesh out of eggplants and squeeze flesh out from garlic cloves.

4. In a food processor, pulse the eggplants and garlic together until desire texture. Alternatively if you prefer chunkier texture, you can mash them all up with a fork.

5. Stir in rest of ingredients to taste. Cover and refrigerate until you want to serve.

6. Toss in cilantro before serving and a few drops of olive oil.

7. Served traditionally with pita bread or crackers, lavarsh, toast baguette or celery.

Baba gounash and Pita bread

Made this a while back.

I just love baba gounash and made some with Jude's recipe.

Use the Japanese round brinjals if you can, not the skinny light purple ones (which I am told are ideal for curries).

Baba gounash are best eaten with pita bread. Will post the pita bread recipe later. They are pretty fast and easy to make compared to other bread recipes.

REMEMBER to roll them out thinly before baking them....

....otherwise you will NOT GET 'POCKETS' in your pita bread!! Confirmed this in my 2nd attempt (no pix) when the dough were rolled thinly before baking them and got pockets!!

No 'pocket's on my first attempt but nonetheless they were fantastic with the dip (accompanied with a glass of wine)!!!

If you can't wait for me to type up the pita bread recipe, you can also refer to Jude's recipe here. She also includes valuable TIPS on getting 'pockets' which I hope she doesn't mind me reiterating here.

• To get the pockets in your pita, let the dough form a skin to help trap steam and puff the dough into balls. After dividing, form the pieces of dough into tight balls, pinching the bottom to seal. Rest for at least 15 minutes to relax the gluten, roll into thin rounds, and let the disks rest undisturbed for another 15 minutes before baking.
  
• Roll the dough thinly, at most 1/8-inch thick. Let the dough rest for 10-15 minutes to relax the gluten if it keeps springing back into shape.
  
• Try to get the dough as round as possible so it can puff into a ball more readily. Liberally dust the counter and rolling pin with flour to prevent sticking and help the dough spread out more evenly."

Roasted Garlic Hummus

This is an easy dip to prepare, especially if you use canned chickpeas. Don't know what took me so long to try this out!!
Note that if you use fresh peas, remember that you'll need to pre-soak the peas before cooking them, so plan accordingly.

Recipe adapted from Closet Cooking

Ingredients
250g can chickpeas, drained
2 cloves garlic, roasted. You can use fresh but the garlic taste will be sharper!
1/2 lemon (zest and juice)
1 tablespoon tahini
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
1. Puree everything in a food processor until smooth.
2. Add some water (or more olive oil) to bring it to the consistency that you like.
3. Garnish with a little chopped parsley.

Served the hummus with crunchy toasted slices of ciabatta and some wine! Yummy.