I really had blogging on my schedule for yesterday, but had somewhat underestimated how long cleaning the kitchen would take. As in clean. As in we started at 1pm and were done by midnight. But now it's shiny (well... as shiny as a dingy old kitchen gets), and there's space, and there's no longer any food that expired five years ago. Afterwards we ordered some Greek food, which turned out surprisingly nice for a delivery service... with one exception: there was bloody mayonnaise in the tzatziki. For some reason Greek restaurants in Germany (which there are loads of) as a rule serve really awful tzatziki, with ingredients that shouldn't really come anywhere near it (mayonnaise!). I think it's one of those recipes that are just too simple, so that people think they need to refine it by adding more stuff... I've met actual Greek people from Greece that use mayonnaise (blegh), American recipes often feature sour cream, and I'm sure there are different variances elsewhere. This is the basic four-ingredient recipe that's made me friends at every potluck for the last fifteen years :P
Tzatziki
- Greek/Turkish/strained yoghurt (the 10% fat kind)
- cucumber
- fresh dill or parsley or mint (dill is the most traditional, but I actually prefer/only ever use parsley)
- 1 clove garlic
- salt & pepper
Put yoghurt in bowl. Press garlic into it (or mince it finely). Add a little salt & pepper. Wash cucumber (don't peel, don't deseed), cut some thin slices (~1mm). Stack a few slices and cut them into ~2mm sticks, then half them, you don't want cucumber nunchucks. Add them to yoghurt. Chop parsley, mix everything. DONE.
Grating the cucumbers will make them lose water too easily (--> soggy tzatziki). You can add a splash of olive oil or lemon juice, but really it's just fine without.
If you can't get Greek yoghurt (10% fat) you can strain it yourself. (I guess there are decent substitutes, but the only one I know of involves a dairy product that seems to only exist in German-speaking countries.). Real traditional Greek yoghurt is made from sheep (or goat) milk, which I guess would make this even better, but sadly I've never been able to find any to actually try it
I love tzatziki I always use mint because i love eating it with lamb.
ReplyDeleteAlso I cube the cucumbers. I like the crispness and refreshing characteristic that a cucumber has.
Oh yes, with lamb mint would definitely work well. I usually eat it with marinated/roasted veg or fries - or take it to big barbecues/potluck dinners - so parsley tends to be a safer, less overpowering, "goes with everything" choice.
ReplyDeleteI've seen recipes with cubed cucumbers but never actually tried it (mostly cause it'd be impractical to swoop giant bits of cucumber up with roast potatoes and the like xD). But I do like them to still have a bit of bite (hence the refusal to grate them).