Just like the salt and pepper shakers and knives and forks, Greek dips are an essential on any Greek table.

Whether it’s tzatziki or tarama, one thing remains certain, one of these dips is going to be lathered all over your food, spread all over chunky continental bread or mixed in with your salata.

Greek dips are really easy to make as they predominately consist of one or two main ingredients, and nearly all them have garlic featuring quite highly. Dips are predominately used as a meze dish, a starter, something to whet the appetite before the main attraction. But dips have a place in the main event.

Considering Greek food is nearly always about a little bit of this and little bit of that, dips are now part of the dinner table set up. And, at the end of the meal, there is nothing better than looking at your finished plate of food and noticing there is a bit of tzatziki mixed in with leftover olive oil from your salad, and realising you are the holder of the last bit of crusty bread.

Costas Saristavros, CEO, Black Swan dips, attributes Australians love of entertaining as the reason behind dips being incredibly popular with consumers. “In Australia it’s a way of life, we love to entertain with barbecues, picnics, other gatherings, and we are the highest consumers of wine, and wine and dips go hand in hand. We are more sophisticated. More elegant,” explains Saristavros.

His brother Christos starting selling tarama at the South Melbourne Markets in 1975 and soon enough Costas joined him to create the first company to commercially sell the dips to supermarkets and delis around Australia. Saristavros says that the highest selling dip, according to scanning data from the supermarket, is the hummus but says that ‘tzatziki, which is 100 percent Greek, is the number two dip.”

He said that the spinach and fetta style dips are also rating high because “the market is moving away from cheap and full of calorie dips into something more gourmet.”

Tzatziki

Topping the list for use is tzatziki. This yoghurty garlicky bowl of goodness works perfectly with meat, hence the reason it’s found slathered all over the pita bread of your yiros or readily available when there is lamb on the souvla. Known as garlic sauce to the philistines, tzatziki is one of the most sought after dips in the supermarket.

Tzatziki is made from strained yoghurt, combined with the right amount of cucumbers that have been squeezed and drained to eliminate excess water, crushed garlic to taste, salt and olive oil. Some variations on the dip include either dill, mint or parsley, and even lemon juice.

Tarama

Tarama or taramosalata. Let’s not be precious, here is a dip made from fish roe and is known as the poor mans caviar. The colour of the dip itself depends on the colour of the fish roe but is traditionally a creamy beige colour. Because people are accustomed to the bright pink colour, it’s not uncommon for producers to add in food colouring to recreate this.

Tarama is served as an accompaniment and is traditionally served on a plate alongside sliced cucumbers, quartered tomatoes and a big kalamata olive in the middle. Fish roe is the basis of this recipe and is blended with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic to create a creamy paste. The paste is then combined with moistened bread crumbs and blended well and left in the fridge to cool before serving.

Skordalia

Bakaliaro and skordalia are as good a couple as Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, Marc Antony and Cleopatra, Brad and Angelina. If there was ever a dip to be seen on Friday night fish night, skordalia’s the one. Probably the thickest and chunkiest of all dips mentioned, skordalia is also the smelliest and most pungent in garlic flavour, certainly not a dip for the faint-hearted and definitely not one for date night.

This dip consists of two key ingredients – potato and garlic. Combine the garlic with a mashed potato and olive oil with a bit of vinegar. Variations include the addition of nuts, predominately walnuts and salt and pepper to taste.

Melitzanosalata

A more recent addition, melitzanosalata literally translates to eggplant salad. This dip is the lesser known cousin of baba ganoush – a middle eastern favourite. The flavour of the dip varies and is dependent on how you roast the eggplant and how long for.

Roast or bake your eggplants depending on your taste then once they have cooled down, scoop out all of the fleshy inside and blend. Add in lemon juice and garlic and blend more. When the consistency is more dip like, add in olive oil to smoothen flavour. Salt and pepper, a little bit of parsley and voila, melitzanosalata.