Tzatziki: What Not To Do!

Just like the nuggets and freedom fries, have you ever wanted some tzatziki and thought instead of running to a store, you would just spend several hours making it? Awesome! I love tzatziki. I like it with crackers, I like it on donairs (which are apparently called gyros elsewhere), I especially like it on spanakopita. I use it in place on mayo on pitas, it is such a good low-fat substitute. It only has a few general ingredients, what could go wrong?

Now, I've only made it once and it was a bit of a disaster, but somehow I STILL thought it was a good idea to make this without a recipe, just sort of making it up as I went along. Oh yeah. It went about that well.

So this is not just a recipe, it's a cautionary tale.

You will need:

2 c plain low-fat yogourt
2 English cucumbers
1/2 red onion
1 tsp kosher salt
4-8 cloves garlic (I am using roasted, but raw is fine)
1 lemon (or juice thereof, between 2-3 Tbsp)
Salt, pepper

This was kind of an equipment-heavy deal as well. You will need a food processor of some kind (pink optional), cheesecloth, a juicer (unless you are using pre-juiced), a garlic press and various bowls.

Engraving on garlic press optional: I have very cool friends

This is one of the few recipes that doesn't require prep in advance, there is lots of downtime between steps, so you should be able to do it as you go.

The first thing to do is start "cheesing" the yogourt. Rumour has it that you can just use Greek yogourt instead and skip this step, but I find plain yogourt much easier to use in other recipes (can be used to marinate meat for Indian dishes or low-calorie biscuits, neither of which can be done with Greek yogourt), no uni-tasker it. Not so with Greek yogo. Anyway! What you want to do is separate and fold over your cheesecloth until it is at least three layers thick and about 2 feet across. Ish. Spoon the yogourt into the centre of the cheesecloth (I recommend doing this on a counter near a sink) and bring the four ends up, making sure the all the yogourt is contained within.

Tie it together with a twist-tie or string, suspend. I found the easiest was inside a tall vase, taping the ends on the outside. For reals. Let it drain for 2 hours.

Here's what you should NOT do. You should not lay the cheesecloth across a bowl and tape down the outsides, which immediately caves in as soon as you start spooning in yogourt.

At that point, you should not panic because the yogourt is threatening to spill out the side and getting all over the counter. You should not uselessly try applying more tape to the sides of the bowl.

You should then not try stuffing it into a large mason jar, and realise that it is leaking out the sides because two of the sides aren't completely covered from when you were panicking and trying to roll up the cheesecloth.

Anyway! While the yogourt (have I used that word enough?) is cheesing you can start prepping the cucumbers. Here is what you should do: Peel and grate the cucumber, placing into a cheesecloth-lined sieve or colander. Put something heavy on top, leave it for half and hour to an hour.

Here's what you shouldn't do: peel and dice the cucumber, then place in a colander lined with paper towel and sprinkle with a teaspoon of kosher salt. Don't cover with something heavy and wait for a half hour to hour.

After that hour, don't check and realise that almost none of the moisture was drained and decide to go with the plate method. What this means, and what you still shouldn't do, is to place the diced cucumbers on a plate lined with paper towel with another plate on top and weights on top.

You should not check in an hour and see that they still haven't drained much. You should go back up the top and just grate the buggers to start with. And press hard.

Meanwhile, dice your onion finely, add to the bowl of the food processor. You shouldn't add garlic at this point, regardless of the pictures.

Add the cucumber, pulse until pulverized. Now if you grated, as I outlined above, you shouldn't see a whole lot of moisture.

Should you, in theory, have diced, you're gonna need to drain. Lay out 2 feet of cheesecloth and spoon the cucumber / onion mixture into the middle. Squeeze that mofo until all the liquid is gone. It will be gooey. The package says you can reuse cheesecloth and that just sounds disturbing.

Put the cucumber mixture in a bowl, add in the cheesed yogourt, pressed garlic cloves, salt and pepper to taste. You also shouldn't use very much pepper. Sigh.

 This is a good time to squeeze your lemon! To maximize yield, I find having the lemon at room temperature helps, as does rolling it under your palm.

Start with a tablespoon of lemon juice and add up to three (average yield for a lemon, in my experience. which is like the four lemons I've paid attention to while juicing), adjust seasonings to your taste.

This makes about 2 and a half cups, at about 10 calories a tablespoon. Which is metric tonnes better than mayo, and is way tangier. Just don't do anything I did, basically, and you'll be fine!

Some of my favourite crackers for tzat: rice crisp style, ryevita and flatbread