TZATZIKI, RAITA and some dancing.

I love Tzatziki. I have loved it every since I was a little gal when I would eat it Gyro places at malls (pronounced yee-row). I even used to make it when I actually worked at the Gyro place at the mall in Alamogordo, New Mexico*. We always called it the Greek yogurt sauce or simply “the yogurt sauce”. Strangely enough, even though I made it in bulk at Gyros at the mall, which we called the “hall” cus it was so small, I never tasted home made Tzatziki until I met my great friend Shannon. She makes a mean Tzatziki and she is of Irish descent. Go figure.

I made this video about Tzatziki a while back, but I wasn’t super thrilled with it. I set the camera up really close to the mixing bowl and the sounds of chopping, tapping of the spoon and stirring were actually extremely hard on the ears, so instead of heading to the Apple store to figure out how to fix that, I just cut out all of those parts out and made it a short, sweet and funny video.

Tzatziki is great on grilled chicken, lamb, pita or anything really.

TZATZIKI

1 Cup peeled and shredded English cucumber (drained)
1 Cup stirred Greek yogurt (non fat works beautifully)
1 Clove or more of finely minced garlic
1 T minced mint (some use dill, not me)
1 t fresh lemon juice
Salt to your liking

Click HERE for the recipe for my delicious turkey kofte that is topped with Tzatziki.

In the video, I tell you about Raita, Tzatziki’s cousin. It is the Southeast Asian version of Tzatziki. It is absolutely delicious as well. It is the perfect way to cool down a spicy curry dish.

RAITA

1/2 Cup plain yogurt (I recommend whole fat for this)
1/2 Cup peeled, seeded, shredded and drained English cucumber
2 T Chopped Cilantro
2 t Chopped green onion
1/4 t Ground Coriander
1/4 t Ground Cumin

Directions: Stir together. Rejoice.

* Gyros is the first job I was ever fired from. Well, they called it laid off. I was about 15. Thank goodness or I might still be working there and giving away a lot of free fries.