hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com
with scordalia that's right the first time i heard the name scordalia
i thought for sure that was a viking princess but i wasn't even close
it's actually an incredibly delicious greek garlic dipper spread
made with believe it or not mashed potatoes and not only is this a fabulous
dip for vegetables and breads and things like that
it's also served as a side dish for things like fried fish and grilled meats
so this stuff's as versatile as it is easy to make and to get started i'm
going to go ahead and peel and quarter this giant potato
and while technically you can make this with whatever potato you want
i highly recommend the starchy and absorbent russet potato
and by the way according to the old school recipes we're not supposed to
peel the potato we're supposed to cook it whole and then
peel it so it doesn't absorb too much water
which kind of makes sense until you consider the fact that most of those
recipes also tell you to save some of the boiling potato water
to thin your dip out with later and that's where they lost me
and because of that i think it's just easier to peel it in quarter and cook it
like this which we will as usual do in some very
generously salted water and what we'll want to do here is bring
this up to a simmer and then we'll continue cooking on medium until these
are just tender are definitely not falling apart
but very very tender and since that's going to take a little while
we should probably multitask by prepping our garlic paste while we wait
and for that i'm going to take a whole bunch of freshly sliced garlic
like about six cloves and to that we will add some nice coarse kosher salt
at which point we'll go ahead and pulverize this down to a paste
and because of the friction those grains of salt provide this is actually not
going to take very long using a mortar and pestle
which really is the only proper way to do this right you're never going to get
this down into as fine a paste using like a food processor or blender
so try to use one of these to get it at least this fine
otherwise you're going to have to mince it super super fine on a cutting board
and then use the flattier knife to crush it down into a paste
which will work but you're going to lose a lot of that garlic oil on the board
so to summarize everybody needs to have this tool in the kitchen
and that's it once that's set we'll reserve that until needed
and we'll head back to check our potatoes which like i said should be
very tender as tested with a knife and then once we've determined those
have been cooked perfectly we'll go ahead and drain those very well
and then we'll let them sit just like that in the strainer for about five
minutes before we transfer those into some kind
of mixing bowl and then we'll work those over with a potato masher until they're
very very smooth and yes if you have a potato ricer go
ahead and use it but a regular masher works just fine here
plus i'm going to pass all this through a mesh strainer later
oh besides breaking down the potatoes what we're also doing here is releasing
a tremendous amount of steam and heat which is good because i do not want to
cook my crushed garlic which is what we're going to add next
and by adding them at this point they're going to retain that beautiful raw sharp
garlic flavor which i think makes this dip so good
right some recipes do call for roasted garlic
which is of course mild and sweet but i don't want mild and sweet
all right i want something bold and aggressive you know like a viking
princess but anyway we will mix in our garlic at
which point we'll go ahead and add some acidity in two forms
i will do the freshly squeezed juice of a half a lemon
plus a couple tablespoons of white wine vinegar and for the record
some recipes call for all one or the other then we'll go ahead and stir and
mash that in at which point we're going to stop and
switch to a whisk which we'll use to incorporate the last major ingredients
and that would be our olive oil preferably something on the milder and
fruitier side and of course extra credit for using
something from grease and the reason we're going to use a
whisk here and stir this in in like three or four additions
is so we get a beautifully smooth and creamy emulsification all right this
base mixture contains a lot of water and as you know oil and water don't like
to mix which is why we slowly whisk in olive oil when we make a salad dressing
so sort of the same principle here so like i said we'll go ahead and whisk
that in in like three additions versus dumping it in all at once and
then once that's set we'll move on to the always important tasting and
adjusting step and that's going to almost always mean
adding some more salt which will vary of course depending on
how much you put in your water and of course you may want to sneak in a
little bit of cayenne and then we'll give it a mix and give it
one last taste and if you wanted to you could also add a little bit of herb here
okay a little bit of fresh parsley would be fine or some chives would also work
and i know some people they swear by a little pinch of dry oregano
so if you want to tweak this a little bit feel free i mean you are after all
the socrates of what goes in these but personally i
like to keep this fairly straightforward and i'm just going to garnish with a
little bit of fresh oregano later and that's it our scordalia is scored on
and we could serve it just like this which is pretty smooth
but to take this up to the next level and achieve perfect smoothness
i'm going to invest the extra three and a half minutes and pass this through a
fine mesh strainer which is going to result in something much more luxurious
and by the way you people with the potato ricer stop rolling your eyes
alright we know you're better and that's it once that's been passed
and we finally understand the true meaning of luxury we can go ahead and
serve that up as a dipper spread next to some vegetables
or any other spreadable or dippable edible things
and for a little extra visual interest i always like to go around with a spoon
like this to sort of create some circular peaks
and valleys into which i'm going to drizzle some olive oil
so definitely an optional step but it is a proven scientific fact that people
love shadows so i think you should do it and then i
went ahead and finished that up with a little bit of fresh oregano
and my score dahlia was ready to enjoy and this stuff would be amazing on like
a thousand different things but some fire roasted baby bellhouse
worked especially well and as far as the taste and texture goes
i do kind of like the potato hummus comparison
even though it doesn't have that tahini sesame flavor but the acidity and the
sharpness of the garlic along with that sort of neutral starchy
base really does deliver kind of a similar effect
and by the way making some little greek potato dipped tacos with fried eggplant
ended up being a great idea and of course no one sits around thinking i
wish i was eating something on a sliced cucumber
but this stuff could change that as that really was a fantastic combination
and since there's no guests in the room let me go ahead and double dip
and then i went back and started over with another roasted pepper which while
i was eating that reminded me of that old saying
man cannot live on vegetables alone so i decided to finish up by showing you some
hot carb on carb action oh yeah raise your hand if you're like
me and enjoy the occasional mashed potato sandwich
and even though serving this with vegetables is probably more popular
it really is magnificent on bread and like i said in the intro
this is also served as a side dish for pieces of fried fish
or maybe grilled meat or grilled fish as we've had this with grilled salmon
and it really was incredible so next time you're planning a cookout
maybe keep this in mind since it's best enjoyed a room temp
which makes it very user friendly for a picnic and other similar gatherings
but no matter where you enjoy it or what you enjoy it with
i really do hope you give this a try soon
so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written
recipe and much more info as usual and as always
enjoy
you