Cacık
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Temperature
Servings
Ingredients
Cacık
- 500 g plain yogurt, ordinary yogurt is right here, not Greek, because it is being thinned anyway rounded
- 200 ml cold water, added a little at a time to the thickness you want rounded
- 250 g cucumber, finely diced, not grated; the texture is the point rounded
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed with a little salt rounded
- 6 g dried mint, dried, not fresh, and this is what makes it Turkish rounded
- 20 ml olive oil, poured over at the end so it sits in droplets rounded
- 6 g fine salt rounded
- to taste dried chilli flakes, Aleppo pepper if you have it rounded
Method
Method
- Dice the cucumber small, about 5 mm, skin on. Do not grate it. Cacık is eaten with a spoon and the pieces are meant to be found; grated cucumber disappears into the yogurt and you have made thin tzatziki.
- Salt the cucumber lightly and leave it 10 minutes, then drain off what collects. This is a much lighter version of the tzatziki step, because here a little cucumber water is welcome.
- Crush the garlic with a pinch of the salt to a paste.
- Whisk the yogurt smooth, then add the cold water in stages until it pours like single cream. How much depends entirely on your yogurt, so add it gradually rather than all at once.
- Rub the dried mint between your palms as it goes in, which wakes it up.
- Chill at least an hour, and serve very cold with the oil poured over and chilli flakes on top.
Notes
- Thin on purpose. In Turkey this arrives in a bowl with a spoon, next to grilled meat, pilav or börek, and in high summer it is made thinner still and drunk. It is not a failed dip.
- Dried mint, never fresh. This is the single ingredient that separates cacık from tzatziki. Dried spearmint is drier and almost tea-like, and fresh mint tastes green and wrong here.
- Ordinary yogurt, not Greek. You are adding water anyway, so starting with an expensive thick yogurt is money poured down the sink. If Greek is what you have, expect to use more water.
- Its close relatives. Ayran is the drink, the same idea with no cucumber and more salt. Haydari is the thick version with more herbs, and that one is a dip.
- Eat it the same day. Unlike tzatziki it does not improve overnight; the cucumber softens and it separates.
Ingredient substitutions
- Aleppo pepper is mild, fruity and slightly sweet, and it is what belongs on top. Ordinary chilli flakes are hotter and sharper, so use fewer.
- Fresh mint if it is genuinely all you have, at three times the quantity, but the result is a different and less interesting bowl.