{"id":17853,"date":"2015-07-19T18:57:52","date_gmt":"2015-07-19T16:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=17853"},"modified":"2015-07-19T19:14:37","modified_gmt":"2015-07-19T17:14:37","slug":"greek-yogurt-and-summer-vegetable-mezespread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=17853","title":{"rendered":"Greek Yogurt and Summer Vegetable Mez\u00e9\/Spread"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"greek_mezep\"Browsing through Katerina’s inspiring\u00a0Culinary Flavors<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0looking for meat\u00a0meal ideas, I saw these gorgeous\u00a0souvlaki<\/a>. I thought they would be my next meal, but then I noticed the yogurt mez\u00e9\u00a0Katerina posted along the souvlaki\u00a0recipe and… ended up making only this cooling side-dish\u00a0(the skewers are still bookmarked though!). I like practically every yogurt\u00a0spread\/sauce I know, but\u00a0this one has really surprised me with\u00a0its complexity and its addictive side: once you start eating\u00a0it, you will find it very hard to stop. If you plan it\u00a0as a side-dish, prepare a double batch because you might easily end up with an empty bowl before you even serve the meal.<\/p>\n

Contrary to the more famous – but equally delicious – tzatziki, this chunky mez\u00e9 is not quick or effortless, but\u00a0the final result\u00a0is well worth it. Baked or grilled aubergine and pepper, olive-oil stir-fried tomato, thick yogurt and vinegar create together interesting flavours I didn’t really expect.\u00a0It will keep in the fridge for a couple of days and I think it can be used in a very versatile way. In fact, it makes an excellent bread\/cracker spread! I love\u00a0it on thin\u00a0crisp bread, both for breakfast and\u00a0as an all-day snack (instead of the usual fresh goat cheese). It’s a perfect summer dish not only because it’s extremely cooling, but also because the vegetables\u00a0it includes\u00a0are now at their best.\u00a0Thank you so much, Katerina, for making me discover one more delicious Greek treat!<\/p>\n

Instead of Greek yogurt I have used smooth fresh cheese (aka quark).\u00a0I have also slightly changed the amounts of ingredients, so make\u00a0sure you\u00a0check the original recipe at Culinary Flavors<\/a>, an extremely creative\u00a0blog full\u00a0of inspiring Greek and international dishes.<\/p>\n

TIP: The vegetables should be baked here, but if you prefer grilling them delicately, I’m sure the\u00a0result\u00a0will be equally good. Just make sure they are not scorched or the mez\u00e9 will become bitter.<\/p>\n

If you don’t have Greek yogurt, you can use smooth fresh cheese (quark) or any natural yogurt.<\/p>\n

Preparation: about 1 hour + several hours in the fridge<\/em><\/p>\n

Ingredients (serves two as a sauce\/side dish with grilled meat):<\/em><\/p>\n

1 small Western aubergine (or a medium Asian aubergine)<\/em><\/p>\n

1 medium\u00a0sweet pepper or bell pepper (I have used here light yellow long pepper and Katerina advised green pepper)<\/em><\/p>\n

1 small tomato<\/em><\/p>\n

1 teaspoon olive oil+some to brush vegetables before baking<\/em><\/p>\n

250\u00a0ml (about 1 cup) Greek yogurt or smooth fresh cheese\/quark or any\u00a0natural yogurt<\/em><\/p>\n

1 tablespoon vinegar (I’ve used Sherry\u00a0vinegar)<\/em><\/p>\n

1\u00a0big garlic clove, crushed<\/em><\/p>\n

salt, pepper<\/em><\/p>\n

Preheat the oven to 200\u00b0C.<\/p>\n

Cut up the aubergine and the pepper into cubes (mine were roughly 1x1cm squares).<\/p>\n

Sprinkles with salt and brush with olive oil.<\/p>\n

Bake for about 15 minutes or more (until soft).<\/p>\n

In the meantime\u00a0remove the tomato seeds (you can also skin it if you don’t like skin, but putting it into boiling water for 30 seconds and then into a bowl with cold water).<\/p>\n

Cut up the tomato into similarly-sized pieces.<\/p>\n

Heat some oil in a pan and stir-fry the tomato for one minute until it softens a bit.<\/p>\n

Put aside on a strainer to get rid of juices.<\/p>\n

Let the baked vegetables cool down.<\/p>\n

Combine the yogurt or quark with crushed garlic, add the cooled vegetables, season with vinegar, salt and pepper.<\/p>\n

Refrigerate for a couple of hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Browsing through Katerina’s inspiring\u00a0Culinary Flavors\u00a0and\u00a0looking for meat\u00a0meal ideas, I saw these gorgeous\u00a0souvlaki. I thought they would be my next meal, but then I noticed the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[80,130,209,13,133,85,18],"tags":[45],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17853"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17853"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17894,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17853\/revisions\/17894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}