Ajvar Cheese Dip
March 9, 2011
From Daniel’s files
This one is a little spicy and uses Ajvar, the wonderful eastern European pepper/eggplant spread that I put on nearly everything. It was only a matter of time before I combined it with a little cheese as a dip for warm pita bread or pita chips. We have several brands and they’re all good. My favorite happens to be Zergut Hot Ajvar. Using the 5-star Thai restaurant scale, the heat in this variety is in the neighborhood of 2 stars. The cheese cools it down a lot.
Combine one 8-ounce package of softened cream cheese with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 6 ounces (by weight) of Ajvar in the bowl of your food processor. Pulse until thoroughly combined and the cheese is a bit fluffy. You can mitigate the radiant pinkness of this by garnishing with chopped fresh herbs, olives or lemon. I have made this with feta cheese (Bulgarian works best) and have had very good results. Leave off the added salt, obviously, if you use feta.
