Garlic-Yogurt Sauce

Tonight I'll start the recipes out with a double header. First a wonderful Turkish sauce which can be used on many different foods (fried or grilled vegetables, meat balls, pasta), and then one of my favorite vegetables to go with it.

Garlic-Yogurt Sauce is a staple in the Turkish kitchen. And it's wonderful. In order to make good sauce you need good quality yogurt, PLAIN yogurt. Get the best quality yogurt you can afford, or make your own (I'll post directions tomorrow). Also, I highly recommend yogurt from whole milk, not low fat, and definitely not non-fat. If you have concerns about using full-fat milk products, check out one of my links to the right, Eat Fat Lose Fat.

This is one of those recipes that I didn't learn from a cookbook, but rather by cooking around Turks, so I don't have specific measurements.

Ingredients:

• plain yogurt
• garlic
• sea salt

Directions:

For a family of four, I'll usually mix up at least half a quart of yogurt for this sauce. But as the garlic-yogurt sauce keeps well, you could easily mix up a whole quart and keep any leftover in the refrigerator.

Mix the yogurt with a fork or small whip until creamy. Then crush the garlic (2-3 cloves for ½ a quart, but this is to taste) and add to the yogurt. Last, mix in sea salt to taste as well.

That's it. Pretty easy. But it's sooooo good!

Nutritionally, yogurt is a wonderful food. It provides protein and calcium in a very digestible form and is a natural probiotic.

Here's some links for more information on yogurt:
Wikipedia article on yogurt
AboutYogurt.com
article from MedicinalFoodNews.com