Greece - Food & Drinks - Side Dish: Skordalia.

Skordalia (garlic sauce) is a very easy to create appetizer/side dish of the Greek cuisine. Its main ingredients are garlic, bread and olive oil.

This (side) dish is mainly served with fish. Actually this sauce is part of a dish that is consumed by (almost) ALL Greeks on the 25th of March, the National Feast Day. On this day (nearly all) Greeks eat 'μπακαλιάρος με σκόρδaλια' (Codfish with garlic sauce). It is the only day in the fast, towards Easter, that we eat fish.

Garlic is an ingredient that is very present in the Greek cuisine. Not only because of its hearty, warm taste but also because it is seen as a medicine. As far as 400 years before Christ, the famous medicine Hippocrates mentioned garlic as having a positive effect against tumors and was a good remedy against high blood pressure. And of today, garlic is also praised for its anti-bacterial effects. (It can be used to stop an accurate tooth-ache).

I like to serve Skordalia mainly with beetroots as it tempers the typical garlic smell. Today I prepared a dish with beetroots and sardines.

Ok, garlic has its typical smell but I don't care (much) about it. It is healthy!
So take me as I am or leave me as I am. I just LOVE it!

Ingredients:

• - 500 gr. white bread. (I prefer some 1-2 days old litourgia, a special type of bread created for church ceremonies).
  - 4 cloves of garlic.
  - 200 ml. olive oil.
  - juice of 1 lemon.
  - salt.

Preparation:

• - (1) Soak the bread (litourgia) in some water for about 20 minutes.
  - (2) Squeeze the water out of it.
  - (3) Mash the bread with the garlic cloves.
  - (4) Add, gently, the olive oil and the lemon juice.
  - (5) Add some salt.

Instead of the bread, you could also use mashed potatoes to create this mousse. It is not the 'traditional' way, but is the most common way, nowadays, in Greece. Actually it is quite rare to find Skordalia based on bread in restaurants or taverns.

Another tip is to store this sauce in the refrigerator for 24 hours as the taste will be much, much better.

Enjoy!