I got bored tonight so I wanted to eat something a bit healthier then my usual dinner so I made some Tzatziki and a burger and stuck it in a wrap.
Tzatziki is a yogurt/garlic sauce and is really easy to make and is fairly good for you.
for the meal you need
- a cucumber
- thick plain yogurt(Greek style is what most places sell it as)
- olive oil
- garlic
- any meat of your choice but the less juice/salt in it the better
- a pita or a wrap of some kind but bread will do if you don't have any
- vinegar(optional depending on taste)
How food make)
- skin the cucumber and then grate the inside into a bowl.
- squeeze the bits until all the excess waste is gone
- mix them into the yogurt
- add a dash of olive oil, if you want you can also add a small amount of vinegar
- mix again until it the oil is well absorbed
- crush a garlic clove, you may only want half a clove if you are not a fan of garlic. if you dont have a crusher(like me) chop the clove into very tiny pieces
- mix it into the yogurt and stir for a couple of minutes
- you have to leave it stand for about 10-15 min in the fridge
- cook whatever meat you want in the wrap, I used a burger on the grill till all the juice was gone out of it
- warm pita/wrap/bread in oven/grill/toaster.
- combine meat+pita+tzatziki and eat
I think this is going to be dinner, much obliged!
Isn't this the sauce that gets put on gyros?
yeah. needs a littlebit of mint, though.
and, depending on how thick the skin of your cucumbers are, you might wanna consider just washing hem instead of skinning, before grating.
This looks good. I may give this one a try this weekend.
For extra thickness, line a sieve with cheesecloth placed over a bowl, and dump the yogurt into the sieve. Let it sit in the fridge overnight. Next day, discard excess liquid from the bowl. The yogurt should be the consistency of a soft cheese.
I'm frying some falaffel to go with this all.
Now I just have to decide how to prep the chicken.
falafel with chicken?
huh?
i thought it was a vegetarian dish, with fried chicken pea balls.
In our barbaric land, the small restraunts and stalls that sell middle eastern will sell you the aforementioned foods (whatever meat, falafel, tzatiki sauce) slapped into a pita with other stuff in a seemingly random order, the falafel being just another item in the wrap. I have no idea how "authentic" this is, but it is tasty so I'd like to attempt.
over here you get a pita with a bunch of falafel balls in it, then you head off to the salad bar to fill it up with as much vegetables, hot sauce, garlic sauce, whatnot, stuff as possible.
i'm pretty sure that's not very authentic either.
but the falafel joints pride themselves on being vegetarian here, attracting a certain slice of the population etc .. at least, the ones i've seen. good possibility that, for example, in amsterdam they sell falafel with shoarma and call it doner.
hell, even when i was in turkey they sometimes got it wrong. doner means "turning" and kebab means "onna stick" (at least, so i've been told), referring to the big hunk of meat that's turning onna stick, little scraps are cut off.
but seemingly, you can call anything based on little bits of meat "doner", no matter if it's from a stick or if you're gonna put it in a pita, or whatever.
I think we're both farmilliar with the same animal, then. The vegetarian aspect is available over here too, it's just part of the normal menu.
Yeah, Americans just like to add meat.
For example, at a bar/restaurant place near me, you can get a veggie burger with chili (non-vegetarian) on it. Other places you can get a veggie burger with bacon. Fact: it's really tasty, because veggies are tasty, but so are meat products! They mix nicely! :wink:
And vegetarians also get highly miffed when they see it, which is worth some extra entertainment value.
i often used to make big cheeseburgers with veggie burgers when i had a vegetarian gf. worked really well.
i might even have added bacon to mine a few times.
the difference with veggie product and meat products is, IMO, that even the really good veggie products tend to get boring after eating it often, but a piece of good meat does not. still, i agree they're tasty, once in a while.
I actually enjoy a good veggie burger now and then...I just make sure I coat the bitch in delicious cheese.
Making things correct with the scientific power of cheese!
Quote from: triple zero on January 04, 2008, 01:24:44 PM
yeah. needs a littlebit of mint, though.
and, depending on how thick the skin of your cucumbers are, you might wanna consider just washing hem instead of skinning, before grating.
I'm not a fan of mint(not even chocolate) but most people would probably prefer it with a small bit of mint.
our felafal place in town gives out to you if you ask for meat, thats the kebab or something. the veg stuff they fry as balls is really nice.
some people add dill to tzaziki. i like it that way.
just yogurt, cucumber, lemon juice, garlic, dill, teeny bit olive oil
and this...
Quote from: Nigel on January 05, 2008, 12:17:38 AM
Making things correct with the scientific power of cheese!
is how i live my life, my dear :)
Now I want some cheese. And I am going to have some!
faust could you perhaps explain me what you're doing if you "squeeze the bits until all the excess waste is gone" ?
you mean to throw away the cucumber juice?
.. that's not waste ;-)
Quote from: triple zero on January 05, 2008, 12:49:54 PM
faust could you perhaps explain me what you're doing if you "squeeze the bits until all the excess waste is gone" ?
you mean to throw away the cucumber juice?
.. that's not waste ;-)
I don't use it and removing it makes the stuff thicker (gotta try the strainer thing next time).
What do you use it for?
dunno really, but i'd be reluctant to throw it away :)
mix it with an egg and some cod liver oil and have it for breakfast.
urgh
but you can mix it with gin, though.
The only situation I would drink gin in is one where I am a sixty year old spinster who lives with her cats.
heh, i have the same thing with "jenever" (that's like, dutch gin)
except not
cause you mix it with bitter-lemon and it's pretty good.
also, secretly, pure it's not that bad either (though i prefer zubrowka or stolichnaya)
I had gin once and it made me really depressed, I wont touch it again
I don't drink rum for the same reason. Actually it's not the depression, it's the throwing-up.
protip: pure cucumber juice will make you poop FAST.
Good to know!
Quote from: East Coast Hustle on January 06, 2008, 12:14:40 AM
protip: pure cucumber juice will make you poop FAST.
for real?
im gonna go drink a shit-ton....... for science!
I'm a weakling who just buys Tzaziki at the store rather than making it, but it is some delicious stuff. I'm definitely going to have to start piling it on hamburgers.
I didn't know you could buy it!
Mix some chopped onions and parsley into your burger, and you've got something approximating kafta.
Quote from: LMNO on January 04, 2008, 01:52:08 PM
For extra thickness, line a sieve with cheesecloth placed over a bowl, and dump the yogurt into the sieve. Let it sit in the fridge overnight. Next day, discard excess liquid from the bowl. The yogurt should be the consistency of a soft cheese.
Use this liquid as a baguette starter.