Classic Greek Tzatziki Recipe

An Original Recipe Brought to You
From the Farmhouse Kitchen at Root & Branch Farms

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Beit Alpha (Persian-style) or English cucumber, grated and drained of excess liquid
• ¼ cup fresh dill, chopped (about 0.6 ounces in weight)
• 2 large garlic cloves, finely minced (about 0.3 ounces in weight)
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups plain whole milk Greek yogurt (I use Better Goods or Cabot brands)

Instructions:

1. Rinse a large Beit Alpha (Persian-style) or English cucumber and chop off the ends. Do not peel the cucumber. It’s highly recommended to use a Beit Alpha cucumber or equivalent, because the peel has a good taste. Some varieties of cucumbers have an unpleasant tasting peel, so avoid using those types of cucumbers for this specific recipe. Having the peel adds a beautiful green color to the tzatziki. If you do not have access to an English or Persian cucumber, you can use another variety but verify that the peel tastes good; if it doesn’t, peel the cucumber before moving on to the next step in this recipe.
2. Using a course grater (a box grater with the larger holes), grate the cucumber. Using a paper towel or clean cheesecloth (even just your hands), squeeze out all the liquid. This step is important, because if you have too much liquid from the cucumbers, it will make the tzatziki separate and be too runny. Once you have squeezed all the liquid from the shredded cucumber, carefully remove it all from the paper towel / cheesecloth. Add the shredded cucumber to a 1 cup size measuring cup to verify you have enough. It should be 1 cup packed. Add the shredded cucumber to a small mixing bowl.
3. Rinse the fresh dill. Remove the large major stems and discard. With the remaining smaller fronds, measure them out to approximately ¼ cup. The dill fronds will be sticking out of the measuring cup, but that is fine for now. Next, finely chop the dill. Then add the dill back to the ¼ cup size measuring cup to see how much you now have. Invariably, the chopping step allows the dill to settle down into the ¼ cup, so you will most likely need to chop a bit more dill and add it to the ¼ cup. I do not pack the dill in there, but I verify that I actually have ¼ cup dill once it is all chopped. I also weigh it to make sure I have somewhere between 0.5 and 0.6 ounces of chopped dill. Then add the chopped dill to the mixing bowl.
4. Chop off the ends of two large garlic cloves or equivalent. Remove the peels from the garlic. Weight the garlic to make sure you have about 0.3 ounces of garlic (once the ends and peels are off). Finely mince the garlic. I use a garlic press which minces garlic amazingly well (it also makes the mincing process much easier and faster). Add the minced garlic to the bowl.
5. Chop a fresh lemon in half, and squeeze out 1 tablespoon of juice and add it to the bowl. I use a large lemon squeezer device, which makes it a lot easier and faster to squeeze out the juice. Using fresh lemon juice is highly recommended, but if you don’t have fresh lemon on hand, you can use bottled lemon juice as a last resort. I highly recommend using the Giancarlo Polenghi brand Italian Volcano 100% Sicilian Organic Lemon Juice. This has the best flavor of any bottled lemon juice we’ve tried. It’s also simply pure organic lemon juice. Most brands of lemon juice have questionable additives which we try to avoid.
6. Add the extra virgin olive oil to the bowl, and mix all the ingredients together.
7. Add the Greek yogurt to the bowl, and mix thoroughly. Be sure to used full fat whole milk Greek yogurt, NOT nonfat or low fat.
8. Add the salt to the bowl, and stir thoroughly.
9. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for about 30 minutes to an hour, or more. This helps to infuse all the flavors into the Greek yogurt. If you don’t have the time, you can of course serve it immediately but the flavor will be slightly different. (The tzatziki will last a couple of days in the refrigerator, but remember to stir it before use, since the mixture can separate a little over time.)
10. Serve with gyros, crudité, pita bread, pita chips, falafel, etc.

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