Appetizers

Meze is a collective name for a variety of small dishes, typically served with wines or anise-flavored liqueurs as ouzo or homemade tsipouro. Orektika is the formal name for appetizers and is often used as a reference to eating a first course of a cuisine other than Greek cuisine. Dips are served with bread loaf or pita bread. In some regions, dried bread (paximadhi) is softened in water.

• Boureki: individually vegetable and meat fillings wrapped in phyllo pastry or dough.
• Deep Fried vegetables "tiganita" (courgettes, aubergines, peppers or mushrooms).
• Dolmades: grapevine leaves stuffed with rice and vegetables, meat is also often included.
• Fava: Yellow split pea puree or other bean purees; sometimes made of fava beans (called κουκκιά in Greek)
• Greek Salad: The so-called Greek Salad is known in Greece as Village/Country Salad (Horiatiki), essentially a tomato salad with cucumber, red onion, feta cheese, and kalamata olives, dressed with olive oil [in Cyprus it contains also cracked wheat (bulgur), spring onions instead of red onions and lemon juice].
• Horta: wild or cultivated greens, steamed or blanched and made into salad, simply dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. They can be eaten as a light meal with potatoes (especially during Lent, in lieu of fish or meat).
• Kolokythoanthoi: zucchini flowers stuffed with rice or cheese and herbs.
• Koukkia: fava beans.
• Lachanosalata: Cabbage Salad. Very finely shredded cabbage with salt, olive oil, lemon juice/vinegar dressing.
• Marides tiganites: Deep-fried whitebait, usually served with lemon wedges.
• Melitzanosalata: aubergine (eggplant) salad.
• Pantzarosalata: beetroot salad with olive oil and vinegar.
• Patatosalata: Potato salad with olive oil, finely sliced onions, lemon juice or vinegar.
• Saganaki: fried cheese; the word "saganaki" means a small cooking pan, is used to say "fried" and can be applied to many other foods.
• Skordalia: thick garlic and potato puree, usually accompanies deep fried fish/cod [bakaliaro me skordo, i.e. fried battered cod with garlic dip, being a very popular dish].
• Spanakopita: spinach, feta cheese (sometimes in combination with ricotta cheese), onions or spring onions, egg and seasoning wrapped in phyllo pastry.
• Taramosalata: fish roe mixed with boiled potatoes or moistened breadcrumbs, olive oil and lemon juice.
• Tzatziki: yoghurt with cucumber and garlic puree, used as a dip.
• Tyropita: cheese (usually feta) wrapped in phyllo pastry.

Many other food items also are wrapped in phyllo pastry, either in bite-size triangles or in large sheets: kotopita (chicken), spanakotyropita (spinach and cheese), hortopita (greens), kreatopita (meat pie, using minced meat), etc.