Recipe #53: tzatziki

 It’s all Greek to me—let’s make tzatziki!

Ingredients:

Note the ingredient labelled “Skyr”. This is a game changer for making homemade tzatziki. I used to use Balkan style plain yogurt, but had to first turn it into yogurt “cheese” by straining it for at least an hour, but the longer the better. My method, in case you’re interested, was to spoon a quantity of yogurt into a coffee filter lined plastic funnel positioned in a cup to collect the liquid that strains (“whey”) and let it rest in the fridge. If you use Skyr, a thick low fat, high protein Icelandic yogurt, you don’t need to do any of this rigamarole because it’s naturally so thick and unctuous. Time saver!

Directions:

Using a garlic press, crush a clove of garlic into a bowl and sprinkle with kosher salt to allow the garlic to mellow, soften, and, pardon the expression, sweat:

Smash the salted crushed garlic after a few moments of rest into a paste:

Add the Skyr (or strained yogurt cheese):

Add a lot of finely chopped fresh dill, or a lot of good quality dried dill, or both:

Using a hand grater, grate some peeled cucumber onto a clean tea towel:

Squeeze out as much liquid from the shredded cucumber as possible with the tea towel (reminding me of the fridge magnet I once saw that said “humans are 80% water—we’re basically cucumbers with anxiety”):

Add the squozed cucumber to the yogurt/Skyr mixture and combine everything well:

Pop the finished tzatziki in the fridge for a while to allow the flavours to mellow and chill (literally and figuratively).

After sufficient chilling and mellowing, enjoy your tzatziki:

I’m enjoying mine with a Mediterranean black bean burger as a topping, homemade wedge fries as a dip, a side Greek salad (the real deal—no lettuce!), a kombucha spritzer, some tulips, and an LED fake candle.

There may be snow outside my window, but it feels like a Greek spring day indoors!