I Can Cooking! #10: Tzatziki, Vinaigrette, and the Meal to Make With Them

 Sauce edition!

 Sauces are an important part of many a meal.  They add moisture, flavor, and deliciousness to the foods they go with; and even if, like my cooking, yours needs no sauces for this purpose (not to brag or anything, ha!), a complimentary flavor can take something good and make it truly phenomenal. 

 Of course, thought the sauces are the theme of this edition, I'll still show how to make the meal that goes around them.

Super-fancy dinner?  Actually a lot simpler than you might think!

The sauces: 

  First, let's talk tzatziki.  If you've ever had a gyro and wondered what that awesomesauce is that they put on it, that's tzatziki.  It's a classic Greek sauce that goes well with pretty much any sort of grilled meat, kebabs, sandwiches, you name it.  And you don't have to go to a specialty grocer's to get it!  It's super-easy to make, and the ingredients are easy to get as well.

 And then there's the vinaigrette.  A relatively simple dressing, but one that's also incredibly versatile.  Made properly, it's delicious on salads or as a marinade, and its aforementioned simplicity means it can be made pretty much however you want!  Sadly however, a lot of the ones available in stores give the dressing a bad name... so many seem to have something wrong with them.  Either they're way too tangy, or lacking in flavor, or worse of all, it may be the "light" kind which is a DO NOT WANT on all sorts of levels.  BUT!  You don't have to search long and hard, sampling various vinaigrettes throughout the dressings aisle looking for one that's decent; you can make the best one you've ever had yourself using ingredients you may already have on-hand!

 And speaking of ingredients!  This is pretty much everything that went into the meal shown above (I'll be covering the ingredients for each of the sauces separately):

All the makings of a fantastic meal!

Vinaigrette Ingredients:

• 3 parts oil:  Since the oil is an actual ingredient and not a cooking medium, you'll want to go for a decent-quality oil here.  Extra-virgin olive oil is the standard for this, but avocado oil is also pretty awesome in this if you can find it.
• 1 part vinegar:  You can use most types of vinegar for this for varying taste profiles and levels of acidity, but I prefer Balsamic.  It's not harsh at all, and has a rich and complex flavor.  Another good option is rice wine vinegar; it's also pretty mild, and has a faint salinity that serves a dressing well.  Just don't go with something super-harsh like regular white vinegar (which is the ingredient that makes so many store-bought vinaigrettes suck).
• seasonings:  The sky's the limit on this one.  My personal favorite add-ins are shallots (when they're in season anyway... onions are a decent enough substitute though), mustard, honey (just a tiny bit, adds complexity and helps with the emulsion too!), lemon juice (just a few drops), black pepper, and basil.

 First, let's chop up the shallots (or in this case, onions since shallots are out of season here).  You'll want them chopped super-fine like shown, so they won't create an odd chunkiness to the dressing.  Use one thin slice for the vinaigrette, and set a second pile of chop aside for the tzatziki!

Nothing to cry over.

 Next, put them in a container suitable for shaking, like a glass jar.  Add in the rest of your flavoring ingredients.

This is the stuff that's usually floating grossly in the bottom of the dressing bottle.

 Then, add in your liquid ingredients.  As long as you use a 3-1 ratio of oil to vinegar, you can make as much or as little as you want!

Beginning to look like something...

 Aaand shake!  Congrats, you've now made a kickass vinaigrette!  Now onto our other sauce.

My vinegar-shake brings all the foodies to the yard.

Tzatziki ingredients:

• cucumber:  This is one of the two key ingredients of the sauce. Whatever volume of tzatziki you want to make, fill about 1/3 of it with diced cucumber.
• Greek yogurt:  The other key ingredient.  If you use fat-free yogurt (as I did), you may have to add just a bit of salt to boost the flavor of the final sauce.  If you can't find Greek yogurt, or don't really have any use for an entire container's worth outside of what you'll be using for the sauce, you can also use sour cream (if you do, don't add salt to the sauce ingredients).
• onion:  Same with the vinaigrette, roughly one thin slice (finely chopped) is just right.  Put in more or less for taste; it's pretty flexible.
• seasonings:  Dill, salt, and pepper are pretty much the standard; garlic powder is really nice in this as well.

 First, assemble your veggies and dry ingredients.

FYI, if you don't dice the cucumbers, you can pour some standard white vinegar onto these same ingredients instead of the yogurt to make pickles!  SCIENCE!!!

 Next, just stir in the Greek yogurt, adding more yogurt or seasonings as you go according to your own flavor preferences.  It's that simple to make!

Tzatziki is a fun word to say.

And now for the meal to go with these sauces!

 As I mentioned earlier, tzatziki goes awesomely with grilled meats and kebabs, but one meat in particular stands out as being particularly amazing with it:  lamb.  So let's cook up some lamb chops!  As with most things of a steak-like nature, begin by heating up a small bit of butter in a skillet at fairly high heat, until it begins sizzling (almost smoking).

I snap a new photo of melting butter for each one of these I write, btw.

 Once the butter (and skillet of course) are decently hot, put down the chops, and season with a sprinkling of salt and pepper.  Don't press them or disturb them more than necessary!  Some sticking is okay, it helps to develop the slight bit of charring that tastes so great.

Showin' yer chops.

 While the chops are cooking, might as well put together the rest of the meal.  Conveniently, you just happen to have the remainder of a cucumber from making the tzatziki; let's build a salad around that!  Sliced cucumber, onion, and cheese with a sprinkling of salt and pepper make a great salad.  As for the cheese itself:  I know, since we're going with a whole Greek theme feta would be preferable, but really any decently funky, chunkable cheese should work here.  The Dubliner I used on this is particularly awesome.

Ain't it purtiful?

 Now that we've made an impressively fancy salad, it should be time to flip the chops!  Season the other side with salt, pepper, and a bit of tarragon, and keep cooking until they're done to your liking.

Flippin' meat like a sir.

Success!

 Now you have a juicy, tender lamb chop cooked to perfection, complemented perfectly by a tzatziki sauce that adds just the right flavors the balance the slight gaminess of the lamb, and makes the meat somehow magically seem even more savory and "complete!"  And on the side, a nice cucumber salad with a killer vinaigrette.  A decent red wine makes the perfect accompaniment, or for the more daring, brandy goes even better with the meal (and if you want to keep in with the Greek theme, try out some Metaxa!  An awesome brand, their 7-star expression is decently easy to find and incredibly delicious).

Omnoms, Greek style.

 Enjoy!