Tzatziki: the thick Greek yogurt sauce with cucumber and garlic
The Greek sauce everyone knows from the barbecue, and the one thing that most often ruins it is watery cucumber. Grated and salted for a quarter of an hour it gives up as much as half a cup of water, and only once wrung dry does it go into thick yogurt. Then tzatziki is firm, clings to the spoon and doesn't spread into a puddle on the plate. The garlic is crushed to a paste with salt, not squeezed through a press.
Your own work in that: 15 min.
- Grating 10 min
- Cucumber releasing water 15 min
- Mixing 5 min
- Chilling 60 min
Step by step
0 / 5 doneGrate and salt the cucumber
Wash the cucumber; peel it if the skin is thick or waxed, otherwise leave it on for colour. Grate on the coarse side into a bowl, sprinkle with half a teaspoon of salt and stir. Leave 15 minutes.
Ingredients: 400 g thick Greek yogurt · 1 pcs cucumber · 2 cloves garlic · 2 tbsp olive oil · ½ pcs lemon, juice · ½ bunch dill · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
TipSalt draws water out by osmosis: a large cucumber gives up as much as 150 ml. That water would otherwise seep out of the finished sauce and, after an hour in the fridge, turn tzatziki into a milky soup.
Coarse grater, half a teaspoon of salt, fifteen minutesWring it dry
Tip the grated cucumber into a clean cotton cloth, gather it into a bundle and wring hard with both hands over the sink. Squeeze out every drop you can: the mass should end up compact and almost dry. Loosen it with your fingers.
TipDraining in a sieve is not enough: a lot of water stays in the flesh and only comes out under the hard squeeze of the cloth. It is startling how little remains: 350 g of cucumber yields about 200 g of wrung-out shreds.
In a cloth, both hands, until dryCrush the garlic to a paste
Chop the garlic, sprinkle with a pinch of coarse salt and drag the flat side of a knife across it on the board until it becomes a smooth paste.
TipA press shreds the cells and releases a lot of allicin: the garlic turns harsh and within an hour dominates the sauce. Crushed with salt it tastes milder and spreads evenly, with no sharp fragments.
A knife and a pinch of salt instead of a pressMix
In a bowl combine the yogurt, wrung-out cucumber, garlic paste, olive oil, lemon juice, chopped dill, the rest of the salt and the pepper. Stir with a spoon, not a whisk: vigorous beating thins yogurt.
A spoon, gently, just until combinedChill for an hour and serve
Cover and refrigerate one hour, so the garlic and dill run through the yogurt. Taste and adjust: tzatziki takes more salt and lemon than it seems to need at room temperature. Spoon into a bowl, swirl with the back of a spoon, pour in the olive oil and grind over pepper. Keeps 3 days in the fridge.
Ingredients: 4 pcs pita or bread · 2 pcs carrots
A swirl, olive oil, pepper, pita alongside
Before you start
With mint instead of dill
A dozen or so fresh mint leaves, finely chopped. A more refreshing version, excellent with lamb and grilled fish.
If you only have plain yogurt
Line a sieve with muslin, pour in 600 g plain yogurt and drain in the fridge for 4 hours. You will be left with about 400 g at Greek thickness, and the whey goes into crepes.
The sauce came out thin
The cucumber was under-squeezed or the yogurt too watery. Stir in 3 spoons of thick yogurt and give it an hour in the fridge; don't rescue it with flour or starch, which would kill the freshness.