A Hungry Bear

Tzatziki sauce, or the Greek yogurt-cucumber sauce, is really quite easy to make. I could have picked any number of simple recipes on Epicurious or in my “food ideas binder” that I’ve been saving. But when it came down to it - pita dough was rising, pork was marinating - I wanted to get this right. So I searched a little more and found this recipe on Kalyn’s Kitchen. This was given to the blog’s author by her Greek friend, and she claims it is the “world’s best” tzatziki sauce. While I don’t have anything to compare it to (and my mom, Yia-Yia herself, wasn’t here to taste mine for comparison to the real deal), I can’t imagine it being any tastier.

Note: assemble the sauce at least 2 hours prior to serving, so the flavors have a chance to come together.

Grocery list (adapted to make 2 cups of sauce - the original was for 3 cups): 2 cups strained Greek yogurt, 1 garlic clove, 2 T fresh lemon juice, 1 large english cucumber, 3-4 sprigs mint leaves (enough for 1 T finely chopped).

Place 2 cups (the full container) of strained greek yogurt into a large mixing bowl. Finely chop the mint leaves and mince the garlic, and add to the yogurt.

Peel the cucumber.

You absolutely have to get the seeds out of the middle, because that part of the cucumber has a ton of water. It would make the sauce much too runny if you skipped this step. To do this easily, quarter the cucumber. Then run your knife horizontally through the cucumber spear, right under the seeds. Discard the inside part.

Finely chop the cucumber. If it’s still too juicy for your liking, you can salt the cucumber pieces in a colander for an hour, then rinse and pat dry (the same way you’d draw water out of an eggplant). I didn’t find this necessary though, since the Greek yogurt I was using was so thick already I figured it could handle the cucumber.

Add a pinch of salt and pepper and mix the cucumbers into the yogurt along with the mint and garlic. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.