Tzatzik sauce: recipe

Tsatsiki (tzattsiki, dzadziki) is a Greek cold sauce-snack. Prepare it from thick yogurt, fresh cucumberand garlic, additionally seasoning with olive oil, salt and pepper. Sometimes lemon juice or vinegar, greens (parsley, dill, mint), ground almonds and other products are added to the tsatsiq.

Tsatsiki are served to bread, vegetables, meat and fish dishes. It is often an integral part of the meze - a set of snacks or small dishes served in the Mediterranean countries. How to cook tzatsiki?

Classic Tsatsiki

This is a classic recipe for tsatsika without "extra" ingredients (although you can add 1 tablespoon of wine vinegar if desired). To prepare Tzatzik according to this recipe, we take:

• 
  250 g of natural thick yoghurt without additives
• 
  3 cloves of garlic
• 
  1 cucumber
• 
  2 tbsp. l. olive oil
• 
  salt - to taste

Cucumber washing, peel and rub onsmall grater. Squeeze out the grated cucumber juice, put the pulp in a salad bowl and salt to taste. Garlic is cleaned, finely chopped and mixed with cucumber. Add the yogurt, mix, pour in the olive oil and mix again well. Serve tzatsiks better chilled.

Tsatsiki with almonds

You can add grated or crushed almonds to tzatsi to give it a gentle nutty taste. To prepare tzatsi with almonds we will need:

• 
  natural thick yogurt without additives - 300-350 g
• 
  cucumbers (medium size) - 2-3 pcs.
• 
  garlic - 2 large denticles
• 
  olive oil - 2 tbsp. l.
• 
  Grated or crushed almonds - 1-2 tsp.
• 
  apple or wine vinegar - 1 tsp.
• 
  salt - to taste

Cucumbers washing, peeled, rubbed ona small grater and squeeze the juice. We shift the flesh of the cucumber into a bowl, add crushed garlic, almonds, vinegar, salt and yogurt. Thoroughly mix, add olive oil and again thoroughly mix.

Tsatsiki: the owner of the note

We can not always get a thick Greekyoghurt, and if you prepare tzatsiki from liquid yogurt, the consistency will not be the same, so the sauce will not be used as a dip (dipping products into it). But the way out is: to achieve the desired consistency, 150 gramsof natural yogurt mixed with 200 g of cottage cheese (fat content - 20-40%). Curd is desirable to take fine-grained. Another option is a mixture of natural yogurt and 10-15% sour cream.

By the way, in a classic recipe yogurt is suspendedin a layer of gauze folded in several layers at night, so that the excess glass of the serum is removed, then squeezed out and only after that it is used for cooking tzatsi.

If you want, you can add any greenery to the Tzatzik,preliminarily finely chopping it. Add even mint to this sauce! You can decorate the Tzatziki with olives, cucumber slices, parsley leaves or mint. Keep the Tzatsi in the refrigerator in a tightly closed glass bowl.

Bon Appetit!