Mezedes

Mezedes are small plates of appetizers usually eaten before lunch. There are three types of meze: ouzo meze, wine meze and more recently, beer meze.

• difficulty

  Easy

Instructions

Traditionally, the strongest flavoured mezedes (plural term for meze) are used for ouzo and these include anchovy fillets, salted fish, pastourma (dried and spiced meat, originally camel meat, but nowadays, beef...) yellow cheese, dips such as taramosalata, melitzanosalata (eggplant dip) and tzatziki as well as spicy feta cheese called "kafteri", and let’s not forget olives and pickled peppers.

Tomato, cucumber, bread and boiled eggs are also used for variation in ouzo meze since there is an unwritten law that one never serves the same meze twice... every shot of ouzo must have a different meze.

Wine mezedes are usually fare that one would find at a taverna and they include hot mezedes, such as calamari, octopus, either grilled or braised in various ways such as in wine or vinegar and bay leaf with garlic and onion or lemon, oregano and garlic. Then, of course, there is tyropita, zucchini patties, keftedes (fried meat balls), fried haloumi cheese and spicy Greek sausages (loukanika).

Beer meze is a recent addition to the meze repertoire and usually consists of very simple "nibblies" like nuts and crisps.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.