250: Greek night: Courgette Fritters and Tatzeeki

Kind of a two for the price of one posting this one. With the ongoing success of my courgette plants, I need to be using courgettes quite a bit at the minute. Not a major problem as yet, I like a courgette. This time I thought I'd go for battered courgette fritters, with some greek salad and tatzeeki.

Unfortunately (I may post seperately a tale of tomato based woe) my tomatoes are rather more sporadic than the courgettes - so a trip to Tesco's was needed on the way home. I was on a mission; tomatoes and tatzeeki. Tomatoes = check, 'Zeeki = the cupboard or indeed fridge was bare. But I was both a man on a mission and in possession of a very large courgette. Time for a first time venture into tatzeeki making!

Tatzeeki recipe, which was based on an amalgam of what we had and other recipes we found:

• 1 x 500gs Greek yoghurt (not the 0% fat stuff)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablspoon white wine vinegar
• 4 mint leafs chopped small
• small handful chives chopped
• ~ 1/3rd of a cucumber chopped small /grated coarsely
• Salt and pepper
• DO NOT REPEAT THIS BIT - we used 6 cloves of garlic (chopped fairly small). I'd recommend using 2 or 3
• Mix, taste - adjust if necessary - mix a bit more

In Greece, we've discovered that the more Greek the taverna the more garlic there is in the tatzeeki. And the more we enjoy it. So, I generously doubled up what  the other recipes said. Oooh, it was lively and a bit much really. A bucket of mints were required to prevent halitosis based deaths in the office. But other than the excess garlic I'd say it wasn't a bad effort at all.

For the courgette fritters:

• Slice a courgette thinly ~3mm. Lay out on a plate and salt. Leave for half an hour to extract some of the moisture; wiping off any excess prior to cooking
• 1/2 pint of soda water
• 1 tea spoon salt
• 1 cup flour, added slowly and whisked in to the soda water (to make a pretty thick batter)

Method, really simple: get some oil super hot. Dip the courgette in the batter and plonk in the hot oil until brown, flipping once. These are best eaten while super hot, cooled a little by the tatzeeki.

For Tea all in, there was: Courgette fritters, greek salad, tatzeeki and sourdough bread.

Happy, if bad breathed times!