Tzatziki

Tzatziki is a refreshing Greek dip perfect for barbecued meats from a simple lamb cutlet to homemade spicy burgers. It can be part of a mezze platter with all your favourite crudités like raw celery sticks, radishes and carrots or even with grilled vegetable kebabs and flat breads. My grandmother mentioned how well the dip goes with fried slices of aubergine and she’s not wrong. It’s such a versatile little dip – cheap, fast and simple. Home made is so much better than the watery shop bought stuff. You literally only need three ingredients to put it together and you’ll never buy it from the supermarket again.

Ingredients:
1 pot of Greek yoghurt
1/4 of a cucumber
2 cloves of garlic

Method:
Mince the garlic. If you don’t have a garlic crusher, you can use flat of a knife to press finely chopped cloves into the chopping board to create a paste as smooth as possible. Dice the cucumber into little squares. Mix both the garlic and cucumber into the Greek yoghurt. Presto: basic Tzatziki!

Tip: Choose the best Greek yoghurt that you can find. It really defines the quality of the dip. Another tip is to leave it to chill in the fridge for a few hours before serving in order for the garlic flavour to really permeate through the yoghurt.

Optional ingredients are mint, dill or lemon juice (and zest). Mint goes hand in hand with lamb – so I add two or three sprigs of chopped mint leaves to the yoghurt when I serve it with lamb chops. Adding lemon is fantastic with a plate of spicy barbecued chicken kebabs and glass of chilled white wine.

Kalí óreksi!   ~