Authentic Flavors from a Mediterranean Kitchen
Mezze is how the Mediterranean eats before it eats — a spread of small dishes made to be shared, torn at and lingered over. These are the dips, spreads and sauces that anchor that table: smoky muhammara from Aleppo, hummus in every register from classic to jet black, baba ganoush, whipped feta, labneh and a proper Genovese pesto, with the flatbreads and raw vegetables that belong beside them. Most take fifteen minutes, nearly all taste better the day after you make them, and every one of them is worth making rather than buying.
Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → I am going to be straight with you: spider-web hummus is not an original idea. There are thousands of spider-web hummus platters online and you have seen … Read more
Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → Almost all bad baba ganoush is bad for exactly one reason, and it is not the tahini. You did not burn the eggplant enough. Not roasted, not … Read more
Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → There is no bottle of anything that makes this colour. Beetroot produces a magenta so saturated it looks lit from inside — somewhere between arterial and neon, … Read more
A moody Mediterranean grazing board in oxblood, black and deep purple. Feeds 12, ninety percent make-ahead, and not a plastic spider in sight.
Jet-black hummus made with black tahini, not food coloring. Nutty, silky and the most dramatic thing you can put on a Halloween grazing board.
Cloud-white whipped feta with a blood-red roasted pepper drizzle bleeding through it. Five minutes in a food processor and it photographs better than anything.
Smoky Syrian roasted red pepper and walnut dip, naturally blood-red with no food coloring. The Halloween appetizer nobody else at the party will bring.
Here’s what nobody tells you about basil pesto: those gorgeous green leaves contain polyphenol oxidase enzymes that go absolutely haywire when exposed to air and heat. It’s basically the same reason your avocados turn brown, but like, on steroids. The traditional Ligurian method of using a marble mortar and wooden pestle? That wasn’t just Italian grandmas being stubborn about tradition—marble stays naturally cool and the grinding (not chopping!) motion releases the basil oils without generating the heat that activates oxidation.
Can we talk about how hard it is to find a party dip that’s actually healthy, stunning to look at, and disappears within minutes? Because this baba ganoush with pomegranate is exactly that — and it’s become my absolute go-to whenever I want to impress without spending hours in the kitchen. I grew up watching … Read more
Here’s the best part: this red pepper hummus comes together in about 15 minutes (most of that is just blending), it’s naturally vegan, gluten-free, and packed with plant-based protein and fiber from chickpeas. Loaded with vitamin C from the roasted peppers, heart-healthy fats from tahini and olive oil, and anti-inflammatory compounds from garlic — it’s basically a superfood masquerading as a party dip.