Skordalia - Ingredient Spotlight

by Emily Matchar, Posted Feb 14th 2009 @ 1:00PM

It's a great word, Skordalia. Sounds like a flower that grows on Venus, or a rare breed of pygmy squid. What it is in fact is a Greek dip made from pureed potatoes and garlic. Not as exotic as a Venusian dandelion, but probably much tastier. The Recipes for Health column in the New York Times has a version using nothing more than potatoes, kosher salt, garlic, olive oil and lemon juice. The kind of thing you can whip up out of spare pantry ingredients and wildly impress your hungry friends. Skordalia is traditionally served with fried fish or cooked vegetables, but it's also excellent as a spread or a dip for raw veggies. Try it in a sandwich with roasted red peppers and spinach.

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Filed Under: Ingredient Spotlight
Tags: dips, greek, skordalia

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-15-2009 @6:54PM Emo1313 said... The Greek place I worked at last year here in Seattle my bosses mom made all the 'traditional spreads and taught me how to make them as well. Her whole family is Greek, her sister makes their phillo from scratch which is pretty amazing , something I never mastered. but she always made the skordlia with bread and prolly 50 cloves of garlic for a batch, very tasty stuff. I feel pretty priviliged to have learned the things I did from some ones Greek mother.
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2-15-2009 @7:19PM Setharoni said... Warning to potential recipe users!

My lovely lady made skordalia following the recipe you have linked to and the result was closer to garlicky mashed potatoes than true skordalia. She had never made it before and wasn't sure of what the consistency should be, so for skordalia newbees I offer some advice.

The consistancy should be saucy, the recipe above isnt very authentic and omits a few key steps. For one it needs 2-3 times more garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. It also forgets to suggest keeping some of the potato cooking water to help thin out the sauce to the right consistency without thinning out the flavor.

The flavor of skordalia is very sharp with garlic and lemon... almost bitingly sharp. The recipe above falls very short..

Here is an authentic recipe based on a cookbook I purchased at a greek orthodox food festival, im steeped in the greekness having almost married a greek gal long ago..

SKORDALIA
(adding some pureed walnuts makes it skordalia me karithia)
10 cloves garlic
1/2 cup Olive Oil
2-3 medium red potatoes
2 tablespoon or more wine vinegar
2 lemons juiced
1/4 teaspoon salt

Cook potatoes and reserve 1 cup cooking water, peel while still warm, grind garlic in mortar and pestle or puree, add peeled potatoes and puree, work in lemon and vinegar, then work in olive oil. Add cooking water if needed to achieve the consistency of a thick sauce. Should yield about 2 cups of sauce.

Serve room temp or cold with fish dishes or as dip for bread cubes. Sprigs of parsley are served on the side to cut the strength of the garlic after consuming.

Hope this helps any of the adventurous garlic lovers out there!
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