Tzatziki that won't go watery
Thick, cold and unapologetically garlicky. The salt does the work, not your fists.
At a Glance
Story
A cucumber is about 96 percent water and it does not give it up to brute force. Squeeze the raw gratings and you get a respectable puddle and a sauce that turns to soup in the fridge an hour later, because most of the water is still inside the cells. Salt it first and wait ten minutes, and osmosis walks the water out for you. Then you squeeze, and what comes out is roughly double.
Ingredients
- 1 English cucumbercoarsely grated
- ½ tsp saltfor drawing the cucumber
- 1 cup full-fat Greek yogurt
- 1 clove garlicgrated
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp chopped dillmint or both
- 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- salt and pepperto taste
Method
The sauce every hot, over-spiced thing on the table is quietly waiting for. It belongs with grilled meat, inside a pita, next to roast potatoes, or on a spoon at the fridge door at midnight, which is where most of mine goes.
- Grate the cucumber on the coarse holes of a box grater, skin and all. Toss it with the ½ tsp salt in a sieve set over a bowl and leave it for 10 minutes. It will start weeping almost at once.
- Gather the cucumber in your hands, or in a clean tea towel, and wring it hard over the sink. Be ruthless. You want it barely damp, and you want to be a little shocked by how much came out.
- Stir the cucumber into the yogurt with the garlic, the lemon juice and the herbs. Greek yogurt is strained before you ever open the pot, which is why it holds its shape here and ordinary yogurt slumps.
- Season with salt and pepper, pour the olive oil over the top and give it a lazy half-stir. It is better after an hour in the fridge and will sit happily there for a couple of days, but the cucumber never entirely stops weeping, so pour off anything that pools and stir it back together.
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