Tzatziki

Units

Temperature

Servings

Ingredients

500 g Greek yogurt, full fat, 10 percent, and strained further if it is loose
300 g cucumber, coarsely grated; you will lose nearly half the weight in water
6 g fine salt, for drawing water out of the cucumber, and most of it drains away
2 garlic cloves, grated to a paste; two is Greek, four is Cypriot
20 g fresh dill, finely chopped
20 ml olive oil, stirred in, plus more over the top
10 ml red wine vinegar, vinegar rather than lemon is the Greek way
3 g fine salt, for the finished bowl, added after tasting

Grate the cucumber coarsely, skin on. The skin holds colour and a little bite, and peeling it gains you nothing but time.
Salt it and leave it 20 minutes in a sieve. Water will run out on its own.
Then wring it out in a cloth, hard. Gather it in a tea towel and squeeze until no more comes. You should lose something like 130 g of water from 300 g of cucumber. This is the step that decides whether you have made tzatziki or yogurt soup, and almost nobody squeezes it enough the first time.
Stir everything together and taste before adding the final salt, because the cucumber is still carrying some.
Rest at least 2 hours in the fridge, and overnight is better. Raw garlic is harsh at first and mellows into the yogurt. Tzatziki eaten immediately tastes of garlic; tzatziki eaten the next day tastes of tzatziki.
Serve cold, with more oil poured over the top.

This is the thick one. Greek tzatziki is a dip you scoop. The Turkish version on this site, cacık, is deliberately thinner and is a different dish rather than a worse version of the same one.
Vinegar, not lemon. Both appear in Greek kitchens and red wine vinegar is the more traditional and gives a rounder sourness. Lemon makes it brighter and closer to a dressing.
Dill is the Greek herb here. Mint appears in Cypriot and Turkish versions. Both together is fine, and coriander is not.
Salting the cucumber is not the same as squeezing it. The salt starts the water moving; your hands finish the job. Do both.
It keeps 4 days. The garlic gets stronger every day, which is either the point or a problem depending on the day.
Beyond dipping: thinned with a little water it dresses a salad, it goes under grilled lamb or köfte, and it is what belongs in a souvlaki wrap.

Greek yogurt is essential and ordinary yogurt is not a substitute unless you strain it in muslin for a few hours first. Labneh makes an extremely thick version.
Cucumber. Long English cucumbers are wetter than the small ridged Mediterranean ones. If you use those, squeeze harder.