Tzatziki variation

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 2 cucumbers
• 500 g yogurt (Turkish or Greek with 10% fat)
• 3 garlic cloves
• some salt
• some oregano
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

Working time approx. 20 minutes; Total time approx. 20 minutes

made easy and quick

We start by pressing the garlic cloves into a very small bowl (I usually use an egg cup). Three cloves is a rough guideline for medium-sized, fresh garlic cloves. Older garlic won’t taste as strong—it’s best to adjust the amount according to your personal taste. Now we add the olive oil and a little salt. Mix the oil, garlic, and salt well. Now we set our “garlic oil” aside for a while. Cut off the two bitter ends of the cucumber, wash the cucumber, and then grate the cucumber using a cucumber grater. Next, squeeze the liquid out of the cucumber mixture—take a handful of cucumbers from the first bowl, squeeze out the liquid, and transfer the squeezed cucumber mixture to a second, dry bowl. Now pour the yogurt over the top and mix the yogurt and cucumbers well. Pour the garlic-oil mixture over the mixture, season your fresh tzatziki with salt, and add oregano. Taste before adding salt – although a relatively large amount of salt is needed, tzatziki can easily become too salty. Chill the tzatziki in the refrigerator – half an hour is enough; the flavor of the salt and garlic will intensify if you cook it up to four hours. If you’re in a hurry, you can serve it right away. Taste again before serving and add more salt or a bit of oregano if necessary. The yogurt is always important with tzatziki: using the right one saves you from mixing yogurt with cream and trying to somehow get the water out of the yogurt. By using 10% Turkish or Greek cream yogurt and squeezing the cucumbers, you can easily achieve a firm but creamy consistency. Yogurt is available in some supermarkets and any Turkish grocery store in half-kilo tubs (usually from the “gazi” brand). The amount of garlic and cucumber depends on personal preference—I prefer more yogurt and less cucumber, while others prefer it the other way around. Just experiment.