We start by pressing the cloves of garlic into a very small bowl (I usually use an egg cup). 3 cloves are a rough guide when it comes to medium-sized, fresh cloves of garlic. Older garlic no longer tastes as intense - it is best to dose it according to your personal taste. Now we add the olive oil and a little salt. Mix the oil, garlic and salt together well. Now let`s put our garlic oil aside.
Cut off the two bitter ends of the cucumber, wash the cucumber. Then rub the cucumber with the help of a cucumber grater. Then squeeze the liquid out of the cucumber mixture - take a handful of cucumbers from the first bowl, squeeze the liquid out, put the squeezed cucumber mixture in a second, dry bowl.
Now pour the yoghurt over it, mix the yoghurt and cucumber well together. Tilt the garlic-oil mixture over it, salt your fresh tzatziki rather cautiously, add oregano. Always taste before adding salt - a lot of salt is needed, but tsatsiki can also be over-salted relatively quickly.
Put the tsatsiki in the refrigerator - half an hour is enough, up to four hours the taste of salt and garlic will be more intense. If it has to be done very quickly, it can also be served straight away.
Season to taste again before serving and, if necessary, add salt or add a little oregano.
The yoghurt is always important with tsatsiki: if you take the right one, you save yourself yoghurt-cream-cream mixtures and attempts to somehow get the water out of the yoghurt. By using a 10% Turkish or Greek cream yoghurt and squeezing the cucumbers, you get a firm but creamy consistency without any problems. The yoghurt is available in some supermarkets and in every Turkish grocery store in half-kilo buckets (mostly from the gazi brand).
The amount of garlic and the cucumber can be dosed according to personal preference - I would rather more yoghurt and less cucumber, someone else preferred the other way around. Just try.
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