Is it a sauce? A dip?We called it a salad and ate it for lunch, with pita bread and a plate of sliced tomatoes.
You will all have your own favorite recipes for this Greek refreshment of yogurt, cucumbers and seasonings.
All I want to do today is tell you my excellent new way (I just blurted it in my brain this morning) of cutting the cukes.
You want peeled, seeded cukes. Diced. Sigh. All that trimming.
Here's the short cut: Peel the cukes with your vegetable peeler. (Put the peels in your compost container, of course.) Now, just continue shaving the cucumber with the peeler, into thin ribbons, all the way down the length of the thing, turning to get all sides, but stopping before you run into the seedy core. You will then have a tube of seedy material. (We saved ours, cut it up, and used it to flavor cold water for drinking.)
Now you have a bit of a mess of cucumber ribbons. Take a knife and hack them into lengths that please you. Cranky liked little squares; I might have liked drapier pieces but I was not in charge. I did, however, clean my plate (and I loved the little squares).
They are so beautiful, they add a whole new tactile pleasure to the tzatziki.
I don't know how to say much in Greek, so I will say Zorba!
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9 comments:
This sounds wonderful and since I don't speak Greek, I cheated and looked it up on line:
θαυμάσιος!
Nancy: It's a dream on a hot day. We seasoned ours with minced mint, a teensy bit of minced onion, a shake of cumin, a shake of hot red pepper (not flakes; it was home-ground dried stuff) and salt to taste. Just so you know.
And I don't read Greek either, but I believe I'm supposed to say:
ευχαριστώ!
Now I know what I'm going to do with that half a cuke that's in my salad drawer. Thanks! I had forgotten about tzatziki.
I kind of like scooping out the seeds, it's a bit like handling frog spawn, icky but cool!
Ms Mouse, I love the expression "frog spawn."
Opa! This word I know because I hurt myself badly with ouzo one evening.I know I am lazy but love the Tzatziki they sell at Costco.
Zoomie: Half a cuke should serve you well. Greek yogurt (of course), and let me know what you come up with!
Mouse: Frog spawn, hah! More like frog spawn is melon seeds. Best of all is papaya seeds. (I hear you can eat papaya seeds...)
Greg: Right, opa! Sorta rhymes with Zorba. Heh.
Tsatziki at Costco, eh? If I hadn't already made this dish, I might have tried that. But I won't now.
oh sigh yum. ok, here's the best (new) part for me - those seed centers. I will just eat them right up on the spot. Like a carrot that doesn't take so much work.
Alecto: I know! It's like a by-product free snack.
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