Skorthalia...say what?

Skorthalia (or Skordalia) is a Greek garlic dip/spread. I first had it at my cousin's rehearsal dinner last summer, which was held at a little Greek restaurant in Alabama. Since that's over a 10 hour drive away, I figured I might as well learn how to make it myself. After writing the owner and asking for the recipe, I found that it just wasn't quite what I had tasted in the restaurant. However, after making a few tweaks I got pretty close. All traditional recipes I found on the Internet used bread or potatoes as a thickener, but I found that the mayo did fine.

You'll need:
1 jar mayo
1/4 cup ketchup
2/3 cup parmesan cheese (I shredded a block)
1 tsp white pepper (you can use black...I just like the white because it doesn't show in the dip)
4 tbsp minced garlic (I just bought a little jar of it)
2 tsp garlic powder

1. Dump the mayo out into a mixing bowl (don't throw away your jar!)

2. Mix in the ketchup

3. Add the garlic powder, pepper, and minced garlic

4. Grate in the parmesan cheese 

 5. Mix well and pour everything back into the mayo jar - You'll have a little bit extra. You can eat that right now. ;)

Feel free to eat this with crackers, pretzels, pita chips, on sandwiches...it's delicious.

*WARNING: DO NOT EAT THIS BEFORE A FIRST DATE, MEETING YOUR IN-LAWS, GIVING A SPEECH, OR ANY OTHER IMPORTANT LIFE EVENT WHERE YOU WILL BE BREATHING ON OR NEAR PEOPLE*

So pretty much what I'm say is...Skorthalia (as you can tell from the recipe) is VERY strong and garlicky. It gets stronger the longer you leave it in the fridge. If you want to cut back on the garlic feel free. However, traditional recipes use this much or more garlic. You've been warned. ;)