Red lentil dip and skordalia

We bought flower bread from Clear Flour and fancied some stuff to eat with it.  So I roasted some tomatoes (with onions, garlic and thyme, as here), and made some dips...


Red lentil dip

For a while back in Norwich this was a regular feature.  Hadn't made it for a while, but bought a bag of red lentils the other day (after a meal at Red Lentil - so easily suggestible), and remembered about it.

1 cup red lentils
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp ground cumin
1 clove garlic
juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
salt

Put the lentils in a small saucepan with the water.  Boil for 2 min, then turn off heat, cover and leave for ~15min.  Add other ingredients and blend to a paste.


Skordalia

We ate this in a Greek place in Queens the other week and it was tastebud-crushingly garlicky, but also very good.  It reminded me I'd made it once before, with wild garlic in Norwich (where foraging was a more realistic option than here).  Thought it could be good with the bread too.  This time I made it with regular garlic, although tried to downregulate the garlickiness to save our tastebuds a bit.

500g / 4 medium, floury potatoes
~3 cloves garlic
1 tsp white wine vinegar
juice of 1/2 a lemon
~ 3 tbsp olive oil
salt

Boil the potatoes until done (~20-25min).  Drain, and mash until smooth. Crush the garlic to a paste. Add the other ingredients to the potato and mash til smooth. Add more olive oil / salt to taste.

The red lentil dip is an instant classic - so quick to prepare, and open to endless variations. My current fave is with cumin, paprika, cinnamon, a little chilli and ginger, and some pomegranate molasses.

The skordalia recipe makes quite a lot. We ate a lot of asparagus (pan-fried and steamed) in the following few days and discovered that skordalia makes an excellent creamy / garlicky sauce to eat with it - just as I was thinking 'hmmm this needs something' skordalia appeared before me and was a perfect match.