Jump to content

Question for the chefs concerning tzatziki


Recommended Posts

Hello, everyone, I have a question. My Greek side of my family has told me to never  eat hot tzatziki. I've always taken that as gospel truth, because every time someone's reheated a gyro for me, they put the tzatziki before putting it in the microwave, which has made me sick. And yet today, someone showed me a recipe for making grilled chicken, which called for placing pre-made tzatziki in the middle of the pan, right next to the chicken. I was always also told to never eat hot yogurt, but I see several recipes calling for yogurt as an ingredient. So, color me baffled. I asked my aunt from Greece "what would happen if I reheated a gyro with the sauce on it, like in the oven?", but she scolded me, telling me that she thought she taught me better. When I told her about the grilled chicken recipe, she said "have they lost their minds?! Let them  eat their grilled chicken with hot tzatziki, and when they're clutching guts in agony, praying in the bathroom, maybe then they'll realize that you don't freaking heat tzatziki." But then again, she also said the same thing about mayo, and I know plenty of people who use mayo instead of butter while making grilled cheese.  So, my question: does anyone eat tzatziki hot? Now, room temperature is a different story. When you get my family all together, most of our food ends up room temp, because there is a lot of gabbing, and a lot of drinking (well, some of us do, the 17 Crimes I talked about was the first time I've had anything alcoholic in years). 

Link to comment

As far as I know, there should not be any problem with warming tzatziki as long as it is fresh. I think what they are most concerned about is the yoghurt, but I have made so many recipes for starters, mains and desserts where you had to warm up yoghurt, that I can't see that being any problem. Another thing that they maybe think will be a problem is the cucumber that is warmed up, and how it reacts to the acidity in the yoghurt once it is warmed. Cucumbers can go sour very quickly if it is warmed and then not pickled... but to be honest I have never tried warming Tzatziki, so my reply is just with what I know as a chef and about the ingredients and the reactions they have to certain conditions.

 

  • Thanks! 1
Link to comment

Delta, thank you :) I would have never thought about the cucumber. I'll be real with you: I'm just going to take your word for it, because I don't quite have the stomach anymore for experimentation. How cucumber reacts to the acidity of the yoghurt: see, that's an answer I can easily understand. Thank you, now I have an answer beyond "I won't eat hot tzatziki bc my family tells me not to"

  • Like! 1
Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/3/2018 at 10:17 AM, Gilberticus said:

Hello, everyone, I have a question. My Greek side of my family has told me to never  eat hot tzatziki. I've always taken that as gospel truth, because every time someone's reheated a gyro for me, they put the tzatziki before putting it in the microwave, which has made me sick. And yet today, someone showed me a recipe for making grilled chicken, which called for placing pre-made tzatziki in the middle of the pan, right next to the chicken. I was always also told to never eat hot yogurt, but I see several recipes calling for yogurt as an ingredient. So, color me baffled. I asked my aunt from Greece "what would happen if I reheated a gyro with the sauce on it, like in the oven?", but she scolded me, telling me that she thought she taught me better. When I told her about the grilled chicken recipe, she said "have they lost their minds?! Let them  eat their grilled chicken with hot tzatziki, and when they're clutching guts in agony, praying in the bathroom, maybe then they'll realize that you don't freaking heat tzatziki." But then again, she also said the same thing about mayo, and I know plenty of people who use mayo instead of butter while making grilled cheese.  So, my question: does anyone eat tzatziki hot? Now, room temperature is a different story. When you get my family all together, most of our food ends up room temp, because there is a lot of gabbing, and a lot of drinking (well, some of us do, the 17 Crimes I talked about was the first time I've had anything alcoholic in years). 

I love Tzatziki! but for some reason it manages to stay off my radar.  I don't know why.  Possibly because the food it goes so well with doesn't oft find its way  to my maw?

It's latest appearance in my life has been startling as well. 

I went to a grocery store not often visited. Kind of far and off the beaten path.  Bought a package of processed, frozen and unhappy looking  kebabs.  

Lo and behold, what rolled out after I shook the box. 

Frozen and ready to be microwaved, small mini-plastic packets of whitish creamy colored liquid which I did, after, pop into the microwave..

Easy to snip open, however, and smear upon the bobs... 

keeeeeeeeeeeeeyukkk!!!

 :lol: :blink: 

gogo

 

Link to comment

All the healthy stuff in Zaziki doesn't like baking or cooking. But I know people who bake Zaziki muffins for the taste.

In my opinion it tastes best fresh made at normal temperature. Problem is that Greek yoghurt has 10% fat while the normal German one 3%. To make it we mix the yoghurt with Quark (sour cream cheese). If you hate the work: In food stores it is sold fresh in air tight plastic containers and it can stay 2 weeks in the fridge.

Instead trying to imitate zaziki we use Gurkenquark. It is a german recipe using Quark and not yoghurt and it lacks the garlic. Young kids often dislike garlic. We buy fresh milk from a nearby farmer and make the quark ourself. Rest is all from the garden. Most often we eat it with potatoes in the skin.

668276-960x720-pellkarkoffeln-mit-gurken

 

We do not make quark just for the 'Zaziki'. Most of it is used for Handkäse ( a sour cream cheese with nearly no fat). Quark is also used for Quarkwickel: a cooling compresse with quark. Used at sunburns, coughing, tennis elbow or similiar, ...

So our selfmade quark is the food equivalent of a  swiss army knife.

A diaper, some quark and you have a compress which speeds up healing after a not bleeding knee injury ;)

 

 

  • Like! 1
Link to comment

Gogo, microwaveable tzatziki? Gross, man. I was walking through our local mart the other day, and saw something called Opaa gyro kit. "Authentic Greek flavor" it offered. "Authentic", "traditional"; something like that. Granted, I was skeptical that I would get authentic or traditional or anything else from the frozen section of the deli, but I was famished. I should have darn well known better, it was like the frozen White Castle burgers version of gyros (barf). Perhaps I'm getting pickier as I get older, but good lord, words like "authentic" and "traditional" are just tossed around haphazard these days. I was at a house doing appraisal for a customer's jadeite collection, when the wife offers me "traditional" Hungarian goulash. Awesome! Except it wasn't. You can't dump paprika and cream of mushroom soup over egg white noodles and call that goulash! Granted, it wasn't bad , they fed me so I was damn well appreciative, but I'm very curious what people think goulash is. And that's not the first house that's called that meal "traditional". Lol, like an "authentic" key lime pie that's green. And don't get me started about a "traditional Thanksgiving meal like the pilgrim's would have eaten". Now, granted, I think it's funny when guys get a recipe for baked beans off the back of like a Campbell's soup can and claim that it's their "famous baked beans with an ultra secret ingredient", but that's not the same.

 

Awesome, thank you for that, chattius. And yeah, it's not a good think to make tzatziki with low-fat yogurt, because the tzatziki starts to separate. Young kids often dislike garlic? My 3 year old loves it.

Link to comment

Young kids have not yet a full developed sense for taste. Some get it with 2, other with 5-6. So mother nature takes over with an instinct: sweet is eatable, sour or sharp is unripe and not. None of our 5 was the same. but till they were 3 garlic was a no no.

  • Like! 1
Link to comment
On 10/16/2018 at 8:35 PM, Gilberticus said:

Gogo, microwaveable tzatziki? Gross, man.

 

Ayup it was pretty gross

reeeeeeeeeeeeelly gross... tzatziki always came across to me as some of kind fresh, just chopped up together kind of thing

this certainly was not that

:sick:

gogo

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

It's all good, I bet many of us have made mistakes like that; it's hard not to with a full-blown case of grumble-belly. Or got a little too adventurous. I was at a world food store, and saw "caramel halibut candy". So, I'm standing there debating about this. I love caramel, and I love halibut, but together? But I had halibut with mango salsa just the other day, and that was awesome. So, we're staring at this stuff like it's some type of alien artifact, checking the internet. It can't be Actual fish in there....... maybe we're reading it wrong, maybe it's like a Swedish fish candy, I love those. Or, maybe it's just like a fish-shaped Snickers. Oh, it was like Snickers all right, if the nougat was fish flavored. For the life of me, I still can't find it on the internet, as no one believes me that there was fish-flavored Snickers. Who the hell is dumb enough to think that those taste combinations would be a good thing? This is coming from the man who not only bought the candy and took a bite, but was also dumb enough to take a second bite, just to be sure that it was as disgusting as I originally thought. God, it was bad, they should have had that crap on Fear Factor. 

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
On 11/8/2018 at 8:46 AM, Gilberticus said:

It's all good, I bet many of us have made mistakes like that; it's hard not to with a full-blown case of grumble-belly. Or got a little too adventurous. I was at a world food store, and saw "caramel halibut candy". So, I'm standing there debating about this. I love caramel, and I love halibut, but together? But I had halibut with mango salsa just the other day, and that was awesome. So, we're staring at this stuff like it's some type of alien artifact, checking the internet. It can't be Actual fish in there....... maybe we're reading it wrong, maybe it's like a Swedish fish candy, I love those. Or, maybe it's just like a fish-shaped Snickers. Oh, it was like Snickers all right, if the nougat was fish flavored. For the life of me, I still can't find it on the internet, as no one believes me that there was fish-flavored Snickers. Who the hell is dumb enough to think that those taste combinations would be a good thing? This is coming from the man who not only bought the candy and took a bite, but was also dumb enough to take a second bite, just to be sure that it was as disgusting as I originally thought. God, it was bad, they should have had that crap on Fear Factor. 

LOL

And...dont keep us having sir... did you buy/taste/retch/revere it?

Enquiring minds wanna know

 

:4rofl:

 

gogo

Link to comment
On 11/8/2018 at 3:46 PM, Gilberticus said:

It's all good, I bet many of us have made mistakes like that; it's hard not to with a full-blown case of grumble-belly. Or got a little too adventurous. I was at a world food store, and saw "caramel halibut candy". So, I'm standing there debating about this. I love caramel, and I love halibut, but together? But I had halibut with mango salsa just the other day, and that was awesome. So, we're staring at this stuff like it's some type of alien artifact, checking the internet. It can't be Actual fish in there....... maybe we're reading it wrong, maybe it's like a Swedish fish candy, I love those. Or, maybe it's just like a fish-shaped Snickers. Oh, it was like Snickers all right, if the nougat was fish flavored. For the life of me, I still can't find it on the internet, as no one believes me that there was fish-flavored Snickers. Who the hell is dumb enough to think that those taste combinations would be a good thing? This is coming from the man who not only bought the candy and took a bite, but was also dumb enough to take a second bite, just to be sure that it was as disgusting as I originally thought. God, it was bad, they should have had that crap on Fear Factor. 

 

Urgh, that sounds soooooo bad... I like making caramel, but I do not like eating it.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment

Oh, yeah, I bought some, gogo, I tried it, almost got sick, and then tried a second bite just to make sure it was as disgusting as my initial assessment. The second bite was worse. I love caramel, just as I love all sea food. But my God, those two flavors combined was the most disgusting thing I've ever had. The next statement shouldn't be read by the squeamish. One of my Marines and I have the type of relationship where we feel free to walk right in to each other's homes and just raid the fridge. In fact, we'd consider it an insult if one of us asked the other before going to the fridge, it's just one of those things. Anyway, one day, it was right after the New Year, and I pulled some eggnog from his fridge. Now, I had never had eggnog before then, so I had no clue of what it's odor or texture should be. Long story short, the nog was old, his daughter was doing an experiment for school. I would rather have another sip of that than eat more caramel halibut. Interrogators should bust this candy out while interrogating.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment

Nearly forgot my favourite Tzatziki recipe - must be it is the wrong season. Replace the garlic with bear garlic, It adds nice green spots for the optic, tastes fresher in my opinion and ...

tam tam tam: you can drive a car full of important guests with less garlic smell in the air.

  • Thanks! 1
Link to comment
On 11/12/2018 at 4:25 PM, Gilberticus said:

Oh, yeah, I bought some, gogo, I tried it, almost got sick, and then tried a second bite just to make sure it was as disgusting as my initial assessment. The second bite was worse. I love caramel, just as I love all sea food. But my God, those two flavors combined was the most disgusting thing I've ever had. The next statement shouldn't be read by the squeamish. One of my Marines and I have the type of relationship where we feel free to walk right in to each other's homes and just raid the fridge. In fact, we'd consider it an insult if one of us asked the other before going to the fridge, it's just one of those things. Anyway, one day, it was right after the New Year, and I pulled some eggnog from his fridge. Now, I had never had eggnog before then, so I had no clue of what it's odor or texture should be. Long story short, the nog was old, his daughter was doing an experiment for school. I would rather have another sip of that than eat more caramel halibut. Interrogators should bust this candy out while interrogating.

lol, oh well... guess Im eating fruits and veggies all day today

thanks for great image though...wheeeeeeeeeeee :heat:

 

:lol:

 

gogo

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...
Please Sign In or Sign Up