Actually very easy

Garlic yoghurt

The beliefGarlic yoghurt is assumed to mean grated garlic stirred into yoghurt, with its harshness unavoidable.

The truthCrushing the garlic with salt and giving it ten minutes before it meets the yoghurt evens out the heat. Salt opens the cells and spreads the flavour.

15 minutes

How to make it

What you need

400 g strained yoghurt, 3.5% fat
2 cloves of garlic
Half a teaspoon of salt

How the engine read this list (3 lines)

400 g	Strained yoghurt	yoghurt
10 g	Garlic	garlic
3 g	Salt	salt

An empty weight means that line could not be turned into grams — either the amount is open ("to taste") or the ingredient has no record here. Neither enters the sum as zero; they do not enter it at all.

Peel the garlic and take out the green shoot in the middle if there is one: that part is the harshest.
Pound it with the salt in a mortar, or crush it on a board with the flat of a knife, until it is a paste.
Leave the paste ten minutes. The wait is what evens out the taste.
Whisk the yoghurt smooth in a bowl, stir in the garlic and taste for salt after five minutes.

Why it works

A whole garlic clove barely smells. The sharpness appears when the clove is crushed and alliin meets the enzyme alliinase, which the cell had kept apart: in seconds the enzyme turns alliin into allicin. Allicin is unstable and within minutes becomes other sulphur compounds. That is why the crushing method changes the result. Grated garlic leaves coarse bits, and each one sets off a new burst of allicin in the mouth; garlic pounded to a paste with salt finishes the reaction on the board, and after ten minutes the taste is rounder and evenly spread. Salt speeds the enzyme up by grinding with its crystals and drawing water out of the cell walls. The fat in the yoghurt dissolves the allicin products and spreads them on the tongue, which is why garlic tastes softer in full-fat yoghurt. Strained yoghurt holds its body, because salt draws water out of yoghurt and plain yoghurt goes runny in twenty minutes.

The rough sum

413 grams going in

259 kcal in total

100% of the mass has figures behind it. This is the sum of what GOES IN rather than of what comes out. Wherever something evaporates, drains or ferments the two differ: a kilo of milk is 150 g of cheese.

Diets it qualifies for

Gluten-free Vegetarian

Storage & shelf life

How long it keeps

Fridge, in a closed box: 2 days
Room temperature, on the table: No more than 2 hours
Freezer: Not advised: the yoghurt weeps

Plain yoghurt keeps a week in the fridge; once garlic is added its taste gets harsher every day. The sharp garlic compounds keep changing inside the yoghurt, and by the end of the second day they leave a bitter, sulphurous trace. It is a flavour limit more than a safety one: make a little and use it fresh.

When to bin it A yeasty smell different from the yoghurt’s own sourness, or a pink or grey tint: throw it out.

History

Where it comes from

Garlic yoghurt sits somewhere between a sauce and a side in Turkish cooking: it comes to the table with mantı, with çılbır, with ali nazik, with fried vegetables, and beside meats from Adana to the Balkans. Yoghurt with garlic is shared across a wide stretch of land from Central Asia to Anatolia. Greek tzatziki and the toum bi laban of Arab cooking are neighbouring versions of the same idea.

The knack

For mantı or çılbır, use the yoghurt at room temperature: straight from the fridge it chills a hot dish fast.
If you are using plain yoghurt, drain it twenty minutes in muslin first, or it will go runny once salted.

Milk and culture