Spicy garlic & sunflower seed dip | Homemade appetizer

Hello, dear Peaker friends!

I haven’t been active for a while here but we (with @rorxco) moved out from our old apartment and also there was this pandemic situation which actually made me work even more than usual.
With temperatures getting higher every day here in Bulgaria I try to prepare lighter dishes since the heat is literally killing me and my appetite.
I love to have my glass of wine every now and then and I enjoy combining it with some salad or appetizers.
The recipe that I am going to share with you today is my own masterpiece of art - I haven’t borrowed any ideas from other known recipes. It is a bit spicy but quite delicious and can even be addicting. And this coming from a person who doesn’t eat a lot of spicy food is a compliment. Yes, I’ve just made a compliment to my own recipe!
As you know there are so many health benefits of eating garlic that this can be considered not only good for your inner food lover but also for your health!

So, let start with the ingredients. The recipe is quite simple and can easily be called a budget-friendly.

• 200-250 gr sunflower seeds
• 1 clove of garlic
• 7 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tbsp vinegar
• salt to taste

First, you would need to take care of the sunflower seed since they are your main ingredient.

With the help of a kitchen pounder crush the sunflowers seeds. Mine is wooden and I do believe that it is much better than the other ones since it is made out of natural materials and can not give any additional smell to the food.
I prefer to leave some small pieces of the seeds because it tastes much better when it’s ready that if you go full-on crashing them into a powder.
Their final look should be something like this:

Now comes the garlic. Clean the clover and divide it into bulbs.

After that, you should cut them into thin slices and again use your kitchen pounder to crush them into a paste with some small pieces.

The final step is to place everything into a large bowl and mix well. I would recommend adding the salt last because everyone has a different taste when it comes to it.
I personally do not eat a lot of salt on a daily basis but for this particular dip, I put A LOT!

You can consume the dip with bruschettas, salt sticks, and basically every salty bakery. I prefer to eat it with thin slices of bread because this way you can really feel the rich and potent taste and aroma of each ingredient.

I hope you enjoy it and please if you do prepare it at home - let me know if you like it. It would be interesting for me to know if some of you have tried a different approach with this recipe!

Stay healthy and delicious,
Chef Dimitrova