The Cocktail Cookbook: Three Essential Dips

Peach Guacamole, Broad Bean Hummus and the GOAT, Muhammara

We hosted a small gathering last night - just the kind of thing we do midweek. I mixed a sizeable vat of Watermelon Spritz (one whole watermelon, one bottle of prosecco); I bought some fancy cheeses and salted snacks; and just before everyone turned up, I made some dips. A cocktail on its own is a fine thing; a cocktail with crisps is excellent; but when you have some homemade dips too, you have won the Do-Bo (domestic bohemian) triple crown.

The “dip” was, as far as I have ascertained, invented in 1992 when Sainsburys came up with taramasalata, the Simpsons premiered on Sky TV, and the nation marvelled at what Homer was doing with his “chips”. Before this, there were only crisps - in Britain at least. The idea that you might use a crisp as a medium for a complimentary dollop of cholersterol was pretty racy at the time. Now of course, hummus is a middle class staple and why I just received a dip-themed press release from a supermarket I shan’t embarass by naming featuring this stunning insight from Oxford University’s Prof. Charles Spence: "For thicker dips you need a wider dipping utensil. The slim nature of a crudité risks houmous dropping all over your trousers, given the heavier load and smaller dipper surface area.” What times we live in!

Of course, wiser nations discovered dips decades, even centuries ago - and indeep don’t even think of them as dips. In the Levant, the heartland of the dip, they are simply mezze, excellent things to have around a table. These people know how to lunch. A good dip makes an excellent centrepiece to a light summer meal - we just had hungover broad bean hummus, flatbread, two types of cheese, tomatoes, no further questions. But dips are especially good at gatherings. I feel they have a special affinity with cocktail.

As with cocktail recipes, there are your basic templates: your yoghurt and garlic dips (I’ve seen this referred to as Yaourt a la Turque); your sour cream dips; your tahini dips; your vegetable-based dips; cheese-centred dips; dips that are kind of just finely chopped salads; sinister mayonnaisey mid-century American dips, etc. But as with your template cocktails - the Sour, the Martini, the Negroni etc - substitutions are always possible and indeed desirable. You can sub out some of the chickpeas in hummus, for example, to give yourself a split (pea?) base. You can add fresh herbs, or toasted spices, or interesting vegetables. As long as you stick to some fairly basic ratios, taste as you go, and don’t pretend you invented this stuff - everyone will have a good time.

So here are three of my favourites - along with matched cocktails. If you enjoy them, I have three more top-drawer dips to come later in the summer, and a few other delicious things too.