Greek Tzatziki Sauce | Christine Cushing

[Music] hi I'm Christy Cushing and welcome to the quarantine kitchen thank you for joining me where I share with you some fun easy feel-good recipes today we're gonna go to Greece because I really feel like that Greek summer is calling me and I'm gonna make for you aids Zeki will talk about how to make it maybe we'll do some Greek dancing who knows what's gonna happen but we're gonna be together and we're gonna be having fun and we're cooking step one is the yogurt so what makes Greek yogurt Greek what is Greek yogurt that's the first step in our tzatziki so I just bought a plain white yogurt full-fat and I put it in a strainer with a cheesecloth for a few hours in the fridge and what comes out see that liquid in the bottom this is what strains off the yogurt so Greek yogurt is essentially strained yogurt now you can imagine for this was about a liter or four cups of yogurt when it started and that's how much water comes off then right so now I want to not use this water and I've got some beautiful homemade strain yogurt let me show you what that looks like inside every Greek household has some of this if you go into their fridge whether they made it themselves or they bought it at the Greek bakery or they I don't know they found it on the street or they know a sheep or goat herder they have some Greek yogurt look at the texture that right so what I'm gonna do now is just take it out of the cheesecloth in the strainer and we're about to make some it's a Dicky baby I want to show you that texture now the longer you leave it it's gonna keep getting thicker and thicker so for me it doesn't you know you can't leave it overnight but it will get super super thick and you'll just make less of it now by the way super amazing flavor and definitely tangy so this is cheesecloth that I use for this anise trainer if you don't have cheesecloth you can certainly use a coffee filter you can also use some fine paper towel okay this is what cheesecloth looks like I double it up and then you need that in addition to the fine mesh strainer otherwise it's all gonna fall through now what you don't want to use is toilet paper are you buying all the toilet paper to make Greek yogurt or to make you keep that's what's happening don't use the toilet paper just use you know a couple of those things that I suggested so that's looking really good okay so here is my beautiful strained yogurt the other thing I want to mention because we're talking about improv improv sometimes you want to improvise but okay I'm getting some push back from my toilet paper comments but I think it's funny cuz what's everybody doing with the toilet paper already I mean stop buying it okay so see this is what happens when people just want to cut when they're not supposed to be cutting we're rolling we're going okay so what I was saying before is if you're improvising because we're in this time of improvisation and you're going to the store the one thing to look for in plain yogurt or if you're just buying Greek yogurt is make sure that your Greek yogurt doesn't have skim milk powder in it skim milk powder is added to yogurt to thicken it up and what happens is it gets that chalkiness so it's much better to strain it but if you're gonna buy just a Greek yogurt make sure it doesn't have skim milk powder in it because it's gonna give you that chalkiness there I got that out of the way now next step cucumber English cucumber is the way to go less seeds it's a sweeter sort of flavor and really I'm winging this in terms of the quantities this is again a no recipe recipe you're gonna have the full recipe below but the English cucumber probably for this amount I don't think I'm gonna use the whole thing it's gonna be way too much and what I want to do is shred it on a box grater basically and I use the thicker side if you go too thin for me it's just not the right texture so I'm going to go on the thicker sign and we're gonna do a little cucumber shredding you want to be careful here with the last little bit and your fingers got to pay close attention to that so much freshness in this cucumber to me also the flavor of cucumber reminds me also of the summer and Greece so refreshing okay so I want to make sure I get rid of all of that actually use it up I'm not getting rid of it so I've got this beautiful beautiful cucumber now what am I gonna do the key with getting the right texture in your tzatziki is not only to strain the yogurt but what you want to do is strain the cucumber so make sure that we press out all the juices so let me just do that and show you how much juice is gonna come out of that so a good thing to do is just press it with your hands and you get a ton a ton of moisture that comes out of that now I don't feel that it's necessary to salt it if you salt it it's going to really release a little bit more liquid for me this is just you know simple easy peasy just squeeze it with your hand to get most of the moisture out and right away I mean this whole beautiful cucumber juice has such a great fragrance so I'm not gonna pitch this I I'm gonna put this in a smoothie or have a nice drink something about cucumber so refreshing right away so I don't want to throw that out but I don't want it in mines adzuki right okay now super easy but the thing about Greek cuisine and pretty much any recipe that I could imagine is the quality of the ingredients you've just have a few things in here you've got your beautiful strain yogurt this amazing cucumber that I squeezed most of the moisture out of it and it's garlic and really some seasoning and herbs so you want to make sure that the quality of each ingredient is superior that's gonna give you a great quality it's a Z key so here I have the equivalent of one large clove of garlic that I minced super finely that's going in and like I have a confession to make about making desi Keon and my philosophy so any family gathering I go to my family is always they use so much they use so much garlic that it really feels like we're warding off vampires I mean it's a crazy amount of garlic and every time I make it I always hear somebody in the kitchen say oh did did Christine make the desi key and I go and say yeah why I know why because it's not laced with garlic to me it's about that balance you want to taste the garlic it's obviously you know a big part of this recipe but it shouldn't be so so so aggressive okay look at the silkiness there look at how that looks and that's about that texture you know you want to have that glossiness that's the straining of the yogurt and getting rid of the moisture and straining those cucumbers look at that silkiness gorgeous love it already I can smell it already now I just wanted to share with you that mincing of that garlic because it is something that I do often if you want to see how I did that you want to check the Ione oh the spaghetti alle alle audio video that I did recently and that'll give you the close-up of how I mince the garlic by with my knife now a little bit of salt because you always want to season as you go but not too much a little bit of cracked black pepper going in and the other thing that I love adding and people are divided on this is some fresh dill now wheat Greeks always err on gianormous amounts of herbs that's what we do it's what we love I can't even think of a recipe that doesn't have herbs in it it's just we love them and they really can awaken any dish any dish and here they're gonna add that beautiful flavour I would have to say dill next to oregano is the favorite all-time like this would be the all-time favorite Greek herb so that amount is gonna go in but again you don't like dill don't put it in you want mint put it in or you don't want any you don't have to add any this is just the way I love making it want to make sure we stir that up it's also gonna give me this beautiful Fleck of green throughout because I always think of how does something look not necessarily only how does it taste look at that now just going to go in and try and taste that but I think that looks good look at the texture there right that's beautiful that's why we strained everything squeezed out the liquid it's great can I taste them for you let's see I want to see if I have the right amount of garlic that's the key thing right now that's your main concern this is the Greek dance right if you go to any party with Greek people this is what you have to do if something is great you just put your hands up in the air like this and just do a step to step together they're gonna adopt you right away and then it's about the arms in the air though that's what you have to do then you can take it to the next level that's our just phase one of Greek dancing cuz this is right on the money do I love it I love it it needs a little bit more salt actually I'm not gonna add any more garlic because again every time I spend a lot of time in Greece every year in the summer it's perfect the desi key doesn't have too much garlic it's silky it's absolute lutely gorgeous so guess what we're doing now we're going to the plate and I wanted to again bring this fresh beautiful colored summery plate to this really to make it beautiful and uplifting I'm gonna go a flat plate this time I protect I technically call this a dip people refer to it as a sauce but in Greece we just saved Zeki we don't have to even say is it a dip is it a sauce it's does equal the back of my spoon I'm gonna flatten this out this is a lot of meat this is when you can have that big Greek party again this is the amount that you're gonna make beautiful and I want to drizzle with a little bit of olive oil over top good-quality Greek extra-virgin olive oil that's the only thing that's allowed on this beautiful it sounds icky oh yeah and I'm gonna put a little bit of fleur de sel this is some Greek fleur de sel that I brought back from Greece but again we're improvising I'm kind of being aspirational here and saying we're dreaming of the beach in Greece but whatever you have in your kitchen right now go ahead and use it I'm just gonna go with a little bit of cracked black pepper and say can you give me an oppa oppa I can't hear you oppa I would smash something but that's not gonna be good okay I got to taste it I made these beautiful Greek style pitas so these are flat made in a pan you want to check out that video Greek PITA it's fantastic they're just made all in a pan just a little bit of olive oil and there are those tender soft pitas that are perfect for dipping in this baby who wants in just get that little triangle wedge there Wow I'm there not quite but I'm very close to being there what is it about tzatziki it's probably the single most popular Greek recipe next to souvlaki I don't know or busty - I can't make my make up my mind but this one is top the list thank you for hanging out with me in the quarantine kitchen please send me your requests your thumbs up your likes tell me what's happening in your kitchen soon we will be on the beach smashing some glasses and eating the Zeki thank you see you next time in the quarantine kitchen

Channel: MyFavouriteFoods ChristineCushing

Views: 71,455

Rating: 4.9111109 out of 5

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Id: czbLfy6LIVI

Length: 13min 56sec (836 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 08 2020