Time: 1 hour of mostly waiting for the cucumbers to strain
Ingredients
Servings, up to 4 on paper, probably more 2 in practice because this is delish.
Tzatziki:
- 1 cucumber-length cucumber
- some salt
- 1 clove of garlic
- strained greek yoghurt
- (maybe) honey
Patties:
- Ground lamb (300-400g)
- Dried oregano, thyme, basil.
- Salt
- Pepper
- 1 tbsp heavy cream
- 1 small egg
Instructions:
Tzatziki
- Shred the cucumber and put it in a cookin sieve.
- Salt it.
- Let it drip. You want to let it sit for like half an hour at least. Longer is better.
- Press any remaining moisture out of the cucumber with a spoon. Taste it. It should taste a bit salty.
- Put the strained cucumber into a bowl with greek yoghurt.
- Press a clove of garlic into the mix.
- Taste. If it takes sour, you’ve bought crappy yoghurt and need to add a bit of honey.
Debugging instructions:
- If it comes out runny and watery, you messed up the straining. You may also have found yoghurt that wasn’t strained. In that case, you need to strain that as well.
- If it comes out flavorless, you didn’t salt the cucumber enough.
One batch of basic tzatziki done. Let it sit in fridge while you cook.
Patties
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Do not skimp on the herbs, they are important. Add like a tablespoon of each. Do not use fresh herbs. Trust the process.
Shape into patties and cook on medium heat in a skillet for 10-15 minutes, until they seem done. Carefully turn them once they start to brown. They’ll probably be pretty loose as you make them, but they’ll firm up as they cook. Let them sit for a while before you disturb them or they may fall apart.
Resist any urges to add things you feel are greek to the mix. No feta cheese, no sun dried tomatoes, no platonic dialogues or antikythera mechanism, nothing like that. These patties stand on their own.