Greek Garlic Sauce
Commonly called Skordalia, this recipe is for a garlic potato sauce or dip. I did this one a little backwards as I needed a sauce for a dinner party. I started with a more modern version and techniques, but will go back and cook traditionally some day.
Servings
More garlic sauce than you think
Ready In:
Using food processor, about 20 minutes total
Good For:
Sauce for entree or side Dish
Appetizers for Party
Dip
About this Recipe
Whatever you do, don’t double this recipe. One potato doesn’t seem like a lot, but I used two rather smallish potatoes and ended up with about 8 cups of garlic sauce. At least this sauce is versatile, since we had leftovers for two weeks (yes it was fine in fridge for a couple weeks). Serve it warm over meat, serve it cold as a dip for pita, let it sit out for hours at a party so people can spread on crackers or dip veggies in. To serve as a dip, top with a drizzle of olive oil and some lemon zest–do not add onion, parsley, or cream of any kind. (You can sub stale bread in for potatoes, but why add gluten?
Ingredients
- 5 – 6 cloves garlic
- 3 – 4 cups olive o1l
- 1/2 cup vinegar
- 1 medium-sized potato, boiled & peeled
- 1/3 cup blanched filberts or almonds
- salt to taste
- water as needed (about 1/2 cup)
Bold ingredients listed on original ingredient list. Italicized found in handwritten notes. Others found in recipe text.
Pound the garlic in a wooden mortar. Add the blanched filberts or almonds and pound to a smooth paste, sprinkling with a little water from time to time. Add the potato and work until blended with the garlic and filbert paste. Then add olive oil and vinegar alternately in very small quantities stirring the sauce briskly with the pestle. Continue to stir in a rotary motion, always keeping the same direction until the sauce is stiff enough to hold its shape.
Step by Step Instructions
Step 1
Mise en Place (prepare ingredients for cooking). Gather olive oil, vinegar, and water. Peel and boil potatoes. Peel garlic. Blanch and peel almonds if needed, or just buy blanched almonds. The store near my house only had blanched slivered almonds, which is fine as everything is going into the food processor.
Step 2
Chop the Garlic. Beat, pulse, chop, and generally grind the hell out of the garlic. It can be chunky and you’ll get a paste in the next step. If you aren’t using a food processor, you will have to grind the garlic by hand until smooth. Either way, you can add a bit of water, or some of the vinegar to help get a fine chop.
Step 3
Create almond paste. Add almonds or filberts (hazelnuts) to food processor. While running the food processor, add a bit of water. Continue chopping and adding water until you have a thick paste.
Step 4
Add Potatoes. Add potatoes to food processor and blend well. This should really only take a minute.
Step 5
Add vinegar and olive oil. I added the vinegar first, about 1/4 cup at a time. Then I started slowly adding the olive oil. This recipe calls for a massive amount of olive oil. For my doubled recipe, I only used about 3-4 cups total. Perhaps if you are blending by hand, you need more oil, but I definitely had a tasty totally smooth sauce forming soft peaks with far less olive oil than called for. This should be fluffy or smooth and not the consistency of mashed potatoes
Step 6
Continue blending. Continue blending in food processor until desired consistency. I added about a teaspoon of salt at this point and blended to a nice dippable consistency for dinner that night. Ideally, this should fold over on itself nicely and be about the consistency of hummus.
Tips and Thoughts
Dairy free alternative. This is a great sauce to make for people who are dairy free, replacing sour cream, tzatziki, or cheese sauce. We used it during a Swedish tabletop raclette night as we had a guest who couldn’t melt cheese on everything.
Scrape the sides of food processor. To get really finely chopped garlic, scrape the sides a lot. Otherwise, the garlic will stick to the sides above the dip line.
Microwave Potatoes. To quick boil potatoes, put in a bowl, cover in cling wrap, and microwave for 7 minutes (for peeled whole potatoes).
Garlic. Always add more garlic. This is raw garlic with vinegar so will taste super garlicky with less garlic needed. If you want to serve warm (as in over cod) add a few more cloves.
Chilling will intensify. Skordalia can be served hot, warm, room temperature, or cold. Chilling for a few hours will intensify the garlic flavor.
Cod with Skordalia
The bonus recipe in the photo is for codfish with garlic sauce, which is a traditional dish served on Greek National Independence Day and the Annunciation (both March 25). I guess most people have fried salted cod, or bakaliaro, but this recipe appears to be for boiled cod. I haven’t tried this, so let me know if you try this recipe!
1 lb salt codfish
2 onions
Garlic Sauce
Cut codfish and soak overnight. Boil with onions, drain, and serve with garlic sauce.
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