Recipe: Yiayia's Tzatziki, of the holy trinity

You'll never buy a ready-made supermarket tzatziki again...

Kalimera!

Another treat for you all this week. You may have seen that the recipe I shared with you all last Friday was for the ultimate Greek chips. Chips, as I mentioned, are part of the holy trinity of taverna orders: chips, tzatziki and Greek salad. These are essential in any Greek Yiayia’s repertoire. This week, I send to you that second instalment of the trio: the ultimate tzatziki dip.

The ideal accompaniment to a salty plate of golden Greek fries, tzatziki is a cucumber-yogurt dip that sings with garlic. It is as refreshing as it is more-ish and beyond the holy trinity, makes for a brilliant splodge on anything, from barbecued meats to your sourdough and fried egg on a Sunday morning.

Yes, you can easily pick up a tzatziki from your local supermarket but nothing compares to one made at home, using this exact recipe. The key is to not be shy with your garlic and to choose a very good quality yogurt (suggestion below!).

Here’s a little input from Yiayia about tzatziki before you scroll down for the recipe…

Anastasia, ‘Yiayia’
Born 1937 in Corfu, Greece
Grandchildren: Ellie, Hippocrates, Anastasia, George, Anastasia, Gregori

Tzatziki is not for a young girl that wants to be kissed. My husband, George, loved it. He’d want it with every meal so I learned to make a very good one not long after we married. He stank of garlic but I loved him all the same.

I met George on the day he came to my house to ask permission to marry me. He used to pass with a horse and cart through my village. He worked as a delivery man, delivering all sorts from olives to flour and he’d see me out in the field, working. He said he’d watched me for months before proposing, which he did by going to my brothers and asking their permission before I had ever even met him. It was news to me. He was a good looking man and I was old by that point, 27, so I said yes. We were married eight days later. 

I’ve always been poor but I’ve never gone hungry. When we were young we had chickens and we’d sell the eggs to make a tiny bit of money to be able to buy fish. We also had our own goats and sheep and we would make cheese and yogurt from their milk.

My oil isn’t the same as the oil you buy from any supermarket. Nothing tastes as good as the olive oil from your own olive trees. My sisters and I would pick olives in the rain on the mountainside every November, while our younger brothers went off to school. I haven’t had a single year off olive picking, apart from the November my husband died.

As I get older, it gets harder to do but I still walk to my allotment for an hour every morning to harvest fresh vegetables. There’s nothing like the food you grow, tend and cook yourself. That is independence. Having someone to share it with is what it means to be rich.

RECIPE: YIAYIA ANASTASIA’S TRADITIONAL TZATZIKI DIP