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 If you can't decide what to cook, just make a shitload of small Mediterranean dishes and call it Tapas or Mezze….Just kidding of course, I love this type of food! They are usually eaten as small dishes with your (alcoholic) beverages or as an appetizer, but I like to make a full meal out of them every once in a while. The full meal thing is mostly because there are just too much old classics that "need to be on the table" and new things that I just "need to try". Today I made Mezze, so that's what the first post in this thread will feature. Apart from hummus, I'm not very experienced with mezze. I normally make tapas, that has it's own classics. So, this was experimenting a bit for future guests… today it was a one persons dinner. This is what I ended up making:  - Grilled pitabread - Grilled halloumi cheese (added some thyme and pepper after grilling) - Grilled aubergine slices (with olive oil, pepper and salt) - Hummus (I already made some chipotle hummus during the weekend; so that's what I ate) - Turkish yoghurt with za'atar and a bit of salt - Baba ganoush (I bought some, because effort) - Dereotlu cevizli salata (Turkish salad with walnuts and dill) It was nice, although the halloumi dissapointed a bit: it had a squeeky/gummy like texture by the time it hit my mouth (anyone tips with better ideas on how to serve halloumi would be great). Baba ganoush is lovely and I should be making it myself next time. The salad was surprisingly nice, it featured tomato, cucumber and corn, but the pomegranate sirup/olive oil/salt-dressing, the fresh dill and the chopped walnuts made it surprisingly good. This thread is to celebrate the festive world of mezze and tapas, to share your own pictures and/or recipes and to discover new things that can be on your table next time you're planning your own table full of small dishes.
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Nov 9, 2015 20:18
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I'll bite. I lived in Turkey for two years, plus several years in a variety of Arab countries, so mezze is something I know and love. In Turkey you start with cold dishes, then warm dishes, then larger fish dishes that are usually shared for the table. Cold mezze could be a variety of olive oil-braised vegetables (seagrass of some variety, roasted peppers) that are then chilled, salted slices of cucumbers, slices of fresh beyaz peynir (similar to feta cheese), something with eggplants, or a hummus-like bean spread. Turks don't do hummus usually. Warm dishes could be other roasted vegetables and small fish, such as fried or braised shrimp or Black Sea anchovies (hamsi season is a legit thing in Istanbul!). The larger fish dishes are a presentation dish that's grilled or flash fried, and is usually whatever's in season in the body of water nearest you. All of this is paired with crusty bread, lots and lots of friends, and copious amounts of rakı, an ouzo/arak-like beverage. Dessert is fresh fruit, whatever's in season. When I'm cooking mezze-style at home in the US, I will make fig and blue cheese dumplings (baked in wonton wrappers), baked goat cheese-stuffed dates, an eggplant dish (depending on my mood, it could be roasted and tossed with chickpeas and peppers, creamed into a dip, or turned into a faux falafel), slices of the freshest tomatoes and cucumbers I can find, and a shepherd's salad (common in the Balkans/Anatolia, it's chopped uber-fresh tomatoes, red onions, olives, cucumbers, and maybe a green bell pepper, topped with pepper, wild fresh oregano, lemon juice, vinegar, and a slice of feta).
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Dec 2, 2015 01:43
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paraquat posted:the halloumi dissapointed a bit: it had a squeeky/gummy like texture by the time it hit my mouth (anyone tips with better ideas on how to serve halloumi would be great).  Yours looks like barely grilled, so that could be adding to the squeakiness. Thin slices + good crust = PUT THAT HALOUMI IN MY MOUTH Illinois Smith fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 14:46
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Illinois Smith posted:I usually make mine in the pan with some olive oil to get more of a crust going. Not my picture but something like this Oh my, that DOES look way browner and tastier ! Will need to buy another block of halloumi again then, haha. No problem though, thanks for letting me know what I was doing wrong!
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Dec 2, 2015 17:44
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paraquat posted:Oh my, that DOES look way browner and tastier ! Oh yeah man, that looks raw. Halloumi (called helim or halloum if you're at a Turkish or Arab store) can take pretty high heat - you can pan-fry it, thread chunks of it onto a skewer and grill it with other veggies, or wrap it in phyllo dough and bake it. God I love halloumi so much. It pains me that A) it's so expensive in the US and B) apparently Trader Joe's thinks there's such a thing as a season for halloumi and doesn't sell it year round. My neighbor (she lived in my neighborhood in Turkey) went and bought out their stock twice and just froze it for the non-halloumi season. We're already out, three months after the end of halloumi season. 
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Dec 3, 2015 03:09
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Fried halloumi and eggs is a pro loving breakfast
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Dec 3, 2015 10:09
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the_chavi posted:a shepherd's salad (common in the Balkans/Anatolia, it's chopped uber-fresh tomatoes, red onions, olives, cucumbers, and maybe a green bell pepper, topped with pepper, wild fresh oregano, lemon juice, vinegar, and a slice of feta). Generally familiar to people in America/Britain as 'Greek salad', btw, and in Greece itself as 'country salad'. (except outside of Greece/the Balkans the feta is usually crumbled into it not served on top)
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Dec 3, 2015 13:57
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feedmegin posted:Generally familiar to people in America/Britain as 'Greek salad', btw, and in Greece itself as 'country salad'. Difference being there's no lettuce - I've never had a Greek salad in the US that didn't include lettuce unless I was at an actual-factual Greek place that didn't cater to non-Greeks.
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Dec 3, 2015 14:49
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