Saturday, January 24, 2015

Htipiti - the Spicy, Creamy, Unpronounceable Mezé

Rarely ordered by name at Cleonice, "that spicy feta dip thing" became a staple as soon as we put it on the menu. We served this savory spread with pita chips hot from the oven, for catering we often accompanied it with crudité for dipping. Some on our staff liked to spread it on sandwiches. Simple to make with a spicy garlicky punch this is a crowd-pleaser. 

Our truly Greek lunch regular, Elaine (also referred to as the "Kasseri Cheese lady", since she bought that in bulk from us) instructed us with the proper pronunciation, "The H is implied." So (h)tee-pee-tee.  

How to make Htipiti

Makes a little over a cup of the spread, enough to serve 4-6 as part of a appetizer platter.




  • Two medium cloves of garlic
  • Coarse sea salt
  • One good sized pickled cherry pepper (preferably red)
  • 8 oz feta cheese, At Cleonice we used half Anne Bossi's and half Pineland, so half goat and half cow. Anne's feta has a creamier texture with lots of good rich tang. Pineland is a harder feta and gives good structure. 
  • Optional 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1/3 cup (approx) extra virgin olive oil



Put garlic and a pinch of coarse sea salt in a mortar and pestle. The salt helps break down the garlic which will quickly turn into a paste. Pounding the garlic extracts the flavor esters by breaking down all the cells, but also avoids the chance of biting into a chunk that didn't get chopped fine enough.  







Chop your hot cherry pepper roughly, remove the stem, but keep some seeds. Add more seeds if you like it spicier, fewer for less spicy. Red Cherry peppers give the good pinkish hue to the htipiti and have a little mellower flavor, but you'll end up with a jar of green cherry peppers if you just pick out the red ones, if you're making your htpiti with green cherry peppers, add more paprika. 

Add the cherry pepper and the pounded garlic to the bowl of a food processor.


Pulse the pepper and garlic together. Scrape down the sides (Rich refers to this as woodgeting, whether this is a cheffy term or just adorable is debatable).



Crumble the feta into the bowl of the processor. Not crumbling can create marbles of unincorporated feta in your htipiti. Add paprika at this time if so desired, the flavor change is subtle but the color enhancement is important if you are using green cherry peppers.



Pulse ingredients together until thoroughly incorporated.



Slowly add the olive oil in a steady stream. The moisture level of your feta will determine how much to add, we added approximately 1/3 cup for this batch which was completely Pineland cow feta. Your feta cheese choice may require less to reach the creamy consistency.



Smooth and creamy, the finished htipiti has a gentle spicy bite and a coral color. 


For our afternoon snack we've garnished it with a sprinkle of parsley and hot paprika and served with crudité and olives. 

Notes:

Pita crisps are easy to make (if you've got the pita) but the pita you have will make a huge difference in what you end up with. Pita crisps are simply split triangles of pita with a drizzle of olive oil, toasted. 

At Cleonice, one of the few things we did not make from scratch was the pita. It was even more of a tender place for Rich and I, because the pita we brought in was so non-traditional. It is sweet and a little cakey, thick and flavorful. Our customers loved it, we ate it only occasionally with a dip like this. 

Granted, we both have pretty savory palates, we love our desserts but don't need dessert (and they should have a touch of salt). I've had fights with chefs who wanted to put fruit with fish (rarely can this go well). 

But I have to acknowledge that those (too sweet for me) pita were loved, will be missed, and until pretty recently were only available to restaurants. So if you need those pita, you can now order them online. They are incredibly affordable until you get to the shipping, so if you're one who needs those pita follow this link and order up, because our next blog posts will be chicken souvlaki and lamb burger (I don't know which comes first). Father Sam's, we used the 8 inch pita. Click that link to find them. 





4 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for doing this! I always wondered what went into the htipiti!!! Bookmarking this FOREVER! <3

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  2. If you are in the Bangor area, Dennis Paper also carries Father Sam's.

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  3. This was my favorite! Also SUPER excited to see the lamb burger recipe! By far the BEST lamb buger I've had in my life! ♡♡♡

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