San Francisco Chronicle
YOGURT SALAD: COOL AND CULTURED
From Greece to India, cooks start with yogurt, then add their own fresh variations
Janet Fletcher, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
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You can't open a Greek restaurant menu in this country without finding tzatziki, the cucumber and yogurt salad that many consider a Greek signature dish. Yet cooks in that Mediterranean country prepare similar salads that rarely work their way on to Bay Area menus. Neighboring Turkey has even more recipes in this vein, prepared with cracked wheat, eggplant, beets and other vegetables. Head east to Iran and you'll uncover yet more refreshing variations, lavished with fresh herbs and sweetened with raisins. Travel to India and there's raita, of course, which is nothing but a yogurt salad.
Especially in summer, these cooling dishes have tremendous appeal, so it's worth getting to know a few more of them. They can accompany grilled kebabs, chicken or fish, or complement a vegetarian meal based on grains or beans. Almost any height-of-summer vegetable -- cherry tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes, okra -- can be the foundation of a quick yogurt salad once you've mastered the template.
"When my husband comes home from work and we are almost sitting at the table, I can whip up a raita," says Laxmi Hiremath, an Indian cookbook author in San Ramon. "It's that simple."
So let's start in familiar territory. The popular tzatziki, known in Turkey as cacik (pronounced jajk, more or less), calls for little more than cucumbers, garlic and yogurt. Success is in the details. The cucumber should be firm, not bitter and contain relatively few seeds. Farmers' markets and specialty produce stores are the best source for the 5- to 6-inch Mediterranean cucumbers -- not the smaller Kirby, or pickling, cucumbers -- and crisp Armenian cucumbers that work well in this salad.
The cucumbers can be grated or diced small, but they should be salted and drained first to rid them of excess moisture that would thin out the yogurt. "The longer the better," says Ana Sortun, chef of Oleana restaurant in Boston and author of the new book "Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean" (Regan Books, 2006). "If you can allow 20 minutes, that's great. If you only have 10 minutes, it's better than nothing."
The yogurt in Greece and Turkey is often made with high-fat sheep's milk and is notably thick and rich. The best approximation in the Bay Area is the strained cow's milk yogurt from Greece marketed here under the brand name Fage, or any thinner whole-milk yogurt drained for at least half an hour (see box, F3). "There are some places in Greece where the yogurt is so thick you can cut it with a knife," says Sortun.
In almost every respect, tzatziki and cacik are virtually identical, says the chef. The Greeks tend to like more garlic in theirs. Both versions will include either chopped fresh dill or mint, or dried mint. A swirl of extra virgin olive oil on top is never frowned upon.
At her restaurant, Sortun makes Turkish-inspired yogurt salads with grated watermelon radish or Easter Egg radishes (also salted first), and with grated roasted beets.
One of the best Turkish yogurt salads showcases purslane, the fleshy, lemony green that many American farmers consider a weed. Purslane is high in omega-3 fatty acids and Turks eat it with relish, says Sortun, separating the leaves from the thick stems and tossing the chopped leaves with a garlicky yogurt dressing.
Turkish native Burak Epir, a former chef at Stanford University who is planning to open a Turkish restaurant in the San Jose area, says one of his favorite yogurt salads is made with wheat berries. He soaks the berries overnight, then cooks them until tender, cools them and mixes them with drained homemade yogurt, garlic and salt. He makes the purslane salad, too, adding chopped green (unripe) almonds when they're in season in late spring.
Not surprisingly, Greek and Turkish foodways overlap when it comes to these dishes. Greeks also prepare grated beets with yogurt, purslane with yogurt, shredded carrots with yogurt. Turkish recipes often call for swishing the carrots in hot oil first to soften them, while Diane Kochilas, the GreekAmerican cookbook author, uses raw carrots in her shredded carrot tzatziki.
In Iran, cooks maintain a trove of yogurt salad recipes that reflect the country's enthusiasm for fresh herbs. The yogurt component in these dishes is plentiful, pushing some of them closer to the realm of dip than salad.
Faz Poursohi, the Iranian-born chef with four Faz restaurants in the Bay Area, grew up on a sheep and goat farm and has vivid memories of sabzi khordan mast, a dish of flatbread, yogurt and fresh herbs eaten at almost every meal.
Every neighborhood had a corner market selling stacks of the necessary herbs and raw vegetables: garlic chives, basil, mint, peppercress and tarragon, plus radishes and green onion. At the table, diners would tuck the herbs of their choice into a folded piece of flatbread, then dip the package into creamy yogurt. Poursohi says this healthful dish is still part of his family table.
With their borani, or yogurt salads, Iranian cooks venture where Turks and Greeks don't. They make borani with cooked spinach, or with finely chopped celery hearts, or with massive quantities of chopped shallot. Their cucumber-yogurt salad includes raisins, walnuts, mint and dill. The smoked eggplant salad may have a final flourish of saffron water and a scattering of chopped walnuts. They make borani with cooked beets, similar to the Greek and Turkish versions, but with sugar added to appease the Iranian sweet tooth.
The San Francisco cookbook author Joyce Goldstein, who is researching a book on Mediterranean salads, discovered a sauteed mushroom borani with a garnish of toasted walnuts and mint.
Thinned with water, the traditional Iranian cucumber-yogurt-raisin salad becomes a peasant meal, says Faz. "You see very poor workers sitting on street corners, bowls in front of them, and that's their meal," says the chef. "It's like a soup, and you dip your bread in."
Indian raitas are probably directly descended from these Persian yogurt salads -- Persia greatly influenced Northern India -- but Indians have added their own spicy thumbprint.
"When I was growing up, my mother made yogurt almost every other day," recalls Hiremath, who was raised in southwest India. Her mother used water-buffalo milk, as many Indians do, because it is richer than cow's milk and yields a sweeter, creamier result. In southern India's tropical climate, the yogurt sets up readily, with no need for an American-style electric yogurt warmer or the blanket that cooks in colder climes wrap around their yogurt bowls.
Ruta Kahate, an Indian-born cooking teacher in Oakland, says her mother made yogurt after skimming the cream from milk to make ghee, or clarified butter. Nevertheless, her family's nonfat yogurt was very thick, she recalls, and almost sweet.
In tropical India, cooks sometimes leave their yogurt out for an extra day to sour it, says Kahate, because some dishes, including some raitas, require a more sour taste. Both Hiremath and Kahate say that Pavel's yogurt, widely available in the Bay Area, comes close to what they remember from India.
The simplest raita has no vegetables, says Kahate. "If you dressed up a bowl of yogurt with what we call black salt" -- actually a sulfurous-smelling pink salt -- "and a little powdered roasted cumin, that would serve as a raita. The additions, then, are plenty."
They include tomato, cucumber, carrot and red onion, among raw vegetables. Cooked-vegetable additions to raitas include crisp fried okra, steamed squash, spinach, potatoes and eggplant. Cilantro and mint are common additions, with mint used more judiciously. "Cilantro in India is like parsley to Italians," says Kahate. "If you feel like cilantro, throw it in."
Kahate says that many Americans have a mistaken impression about raita. "You constantly hear that it's to cool the rest of the meal down," says Kahate. "But a lot of our raitas can be spicy." Especially in the south, cooks add broken-up dried red chiles to the hot oil seasoning they pour over raita just before serving -- a spicy flourish known as tadka -- or sprinkle the raita with cayenne.
The word raita derives from rai, a Hindu word for mustard seed, the most prevalent spice in tadka. But Indian cooks now embellish their tadkas with cumin seed, turmeric, chiles, garlic and sometimes curry leaf, depending on their region. "Then it's even more exotic," says Hiremath, "and it tastes really great."
Draining yogurt
Many yogurt salad recipes call for draining yogurt of some of its whey to make it thicker. Choose a plain yogurt without gums, pectin, gelatin or other stabilizers. Whole-milk yogurt will give the best results.
Line a sieve with a double thickness of cheesecloth and set it over a bowl. Put the yogurt in the sieve and let it drain until it is as thick as you like, from 30 minutes to several hours. Refrigerate if draining for more than 1 hour.
Turkish Eggplant & Pepper Salad with Walnuts & Yogurt
Adapted from "Classical Turkish Cooking" by Ayla Algar (HarperCollins, 1991).
INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2-pound globe eggplant
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 large green bell pepper
1 jalapeno chile
1 or 2 garlic cloves, minced
to a paste with salt
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup finely ground toasted walnuts
1/2 cup drained yogurt (see box)
Freshly ground black pepper
Wine vinegar to taste
INSTRUCTIONS:
Wrap eggplant in a double layer of aluminum foil, sealing the package well. Set package directly over a medium gas flame or a charcoal fire, turning occasionally until eggplant is tender, about 25 minutes. You can also bake the eggplant unwrapped on a baking sheet in a moderately hot oven, about 400 degrees, pricking it first to prevent bursting, but it will not have the desirable smoky taste.
Carefully unwrap the foil package, and when eggplant is cool enough to handle, remove the charred black skin. Scrape flesh into a bowl and add cold water to cover. Add lemon juice and let stand 30 minutes to keep the eggplant from darkening. Drain eggplant and squeeze dry.
Over a gas flame or charcoal fire, or under a broiler, cook green pepper and chile until blackened and blistered all over. Set aside until cool enough to handle. Remove the skins, ribs and seeds. Mince the green pepper and chile.
Put the eggplant, green pepper, chile and garlic in a mortar and pound to a paste. Alternatively, mince to a paste by hand. Stir in the olive oil, walnuts and yogurt. Season to taste with salt, pepper and wine vinegar. Let stand at room temperature for a couple of hours to blend flavors, or refrigerate for longer keeping.
Makes 2-2 1/2 cups
PER 1/2 CUP: 155 calories, 4 g protein, 16 g carbohydrate, 10 g fat (2 g saturated), 3 mg cholesterol, 17 mg sodium, 5 g fiber.
Greek Yogurt, Garlic, Cucumber & Fennel Dip (Tzatziki Me Maratho)
Adapted from "The Foods of the Greek Islands" by Aglaia Kremezi (Houghton Mifflin, 2000). Mild Mediterranean cucumbers, about 6 inches long, are available at some farmers' markets and produce markets.
INGREDIENTS:
1 pound Mediterranean or English cucumbers
Salt
1 small fennel bulb
2 cups drained yogurt
(see "Draining yogurt" box)
1/4 cup minced fennel fronds, dill or a combination + more for garnish
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeno chile, seeded and minced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice
INSTRUCTIONS:
Peel the cucumbers. If using English cucumbers, halve lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Mediterranean cucumbers do not need to be seeded. Grate the cucumbers coarsely. Transfer to a sieve and sprinkle with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Toss well, then let drain 45 minutes. Put the cucumbers in a clean dish towel and squeeze well to remove excess water.
Grate the fennel coarsely.
In a bowl, combine the yogurt, herbs, garlic, chile, 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Whisk well. Stir in the fennel and the cucumbers. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and additional lemon juice, if desired. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 3 hours before serving.
Transfer to a serving bowl or platter, drizzle with remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and garnish with reserved herbs.
Serves 6
PER SERVING: 115 calories, 4 g protein, 9 g carbohydrate, 8 g fat (2 g saturated), 10 mg cholesterol, 60 mg sodium, 2 g fiber.
Tomato Raita
Adapted from "The Dance of Spices," by Laxmi Hiremath (John Wiley & Sons, 2005).
INGREDIENTS:
2 large tomatoes
1 small white or red onion
Fresh red and green chiles,
to taste, such as jalapenos
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup crushed roasted peanuts
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
Several romaine lettuce leaves for lining serving bowl
INSTRUCTIONS:
Core the tomatoes and chop finely; drain in a sieve. Peel and quarter the onion and slice thinly lengthwise. Stem and sliver the chiles and set aside.
Just before serving, combine the yogurt, salt, sugar and peanuts in a bowl. Fold in the tomatoes and cilantro.
Heat the oil in a small skillet over moderately high heat. Add the mustard and cumin seeds; immediately cover with a spatter screen, and cook until the seeds stop popping, about 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and cool slightly.
Line a serving dish with romaine leaves and mound raita in the center. Top with the oil seasoning. Arrange the slivered chiles, in petal fashion.
Serves 6
PER SERVING: 100 calories, 4 g protein, 8 g carbohydrate, 7 g fat (1 g saturated), 5 mg cholesterol, 212 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.
Persian Spinach Salad (Borani Esfanaj)
This recipe from Bay Area cookbook author Joyce Goldstein will appear in her forthcoming book on Mediterranean salads.
INGREDIENTS:
1 pound fresh spinach
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small onion, minced
Ground cinnamon (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup drained yogurt (see "Draining Yogurt" box)
2 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint or dill + more for garnish
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons chopped toasted walnuts
INSTRUCTIONS:
Discard the spinach stems. Wash and drain the leaves, then chop coarsely.
Melt the butter in a large saute pan. Add the onion and a generous pinch of cinnamon, if using, and cook over medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant. Add the spinach and cook until it wilts, stirring often. Drain well and let cool.
In a bowl, whisk together the yogurt, olive oil, lemon juice and mint or dill. Season with salt and pepper. Toss with the spinach and taste for seasoning. Transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle with walnuts and more herbs. Serve at room temperature with pita bread.
Serves 4
PER SERVING: 265 calories, 7 g protein, 11 g carbohydrate, 23 g fat (8 g saturated), 31 mg cholesterol, 121 mg sodium, 4 g fiber.
Iranian Yogurt & Cucumber Dip with Raisins & Walnuts (Mast-O Khiar)
Adapted from "New Food of Life" by Najmieh Batmanglij (Mage Publishers, 1994). Traditionally, the dish is garnished with fresh or dried rose petals. Dried rose petals are available at Middle Eastern markets. If using fresh rose petals, be sure they are from an unsprayed bush.
INGREDIENTS:
1/3 cup raisins
1 English cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, in 1/4-inch dice
3 cups drained yogurt (see "Draining Yogurt," F3)
1/4 cup minced green onion + more for garnish
1/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts + more for garnish
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint + more for garnish
2 cloves garlic, minced to a paste with salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Fresh or dried rose petals (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS:
Cover the raisins in water to plump for about 30 minutes. Drain. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, cucumber, yogurt, green onion, walnuts, dill, mint and garlic. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for 1 hour. Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with more green onion, walnuts, mint and rose petals (if using).
Makes about 5 cups
PER 1/2 CUP: 85 calories, 4 g protein, 9 g carbohydrate, 4 g fat (2 g saturated), 9 mg cholesterol, 37 mg sodium, 1 fiber.
Crispy Okra Raita
Adapted from the forthcoming book "5 Spices, 50 Dishes," by Ruta Kahate (Chronicle Books).
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 pound fresh okra
6 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup plain whole or low-fat yogurt
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
Chopped cilantro (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS:
Wash okra and towel dry each one thoroughly. Slice into 1/4-inch-thick rounds.
Heat 5 tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When very hot, add okra, toss and let sizzle. Toss occasionally. The okra will slowly turn crisp and brown. Once all the okra is well browned, remove to a paper towel-lined platter with a slotted spoon and set aside until ready to serve.
In a serving bowl, whisk yogurt with the salt and sugar. Place cayenne and turmeric in a small pile on yogurt, but do not mix in yet. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a small skillet over high heat. When oil begins to smoke, add mustard seeds, covering pan with a lid. When mustard seeds stop sputtering, pour hot oil directly over cayenne and turmeric. This ensures the spices have a cooked flavor, without getting burnt.
Stir the okra into the yogurt, scatter chopped cilantro on top, if using, and serve immediately.
Serves 2 to 4
PER SERVING: 105 calories, 4 g protein, 8 g carbohydrate, 7 g fat (2 g saturated), 8 mg cholesterol, 32 mg sodium, 2 g fiber.
Beet Tzatziki
Adapted from "Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean," by Ana Sortun (Regan Books, 2006). Sortun recommends Chioggia (pink) or golden beets; you can use red beets but the salad will be a shocking pink.
INGREDIENTS:
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups drained yogurt (see "Drained Yogurt," F3)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
Freshly ground black pepper
1 to 1 1/2 cups cooked shredded beets
INSTRUCTIONS:
Combine the lemon juice, garlic and salt in a bowl and let stand 10 minutes. This step takes some of the heat out of the raw garlic. Stir in the yogurt, olive oil, dill and pepper to taste. Fold in the beets and adjust the seasoning. Serve cold or at room temperature.
Serves 4 to 6
PER SERVING: 95 calories, 4 g protein, 11 g carbohydrate, 4 g fat (2 g saturated), 8 mg cholesterol, 273 mg sodium, 2 g fiber.
E-mail comments to Janet Fletcher at jfletcher@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page F - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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