Recipes & guides · 4 min read
Three Bulgarian ways to use homemade yogurt
Tarator, ayran and strained yogurt with olive oil: three simple Bulgarian recipes that start with a jar of homemade yogurt.
A litre of homemade yogurt goes further than breakfast. These three are everyday Bulgarian dishes, and each takes a few minutes.
Tarator — cold cucumber soup
For 4 bowls: 500 g yogurt, 1 cucumber, 1–2 garlic cloves, a small bunch of dill, a handful of walnuts, 2 tablespoons of sunflower or olive oil, salt, and 300–400 ml cold water.
- Whisk the yogurt with the water until smooth.
- Grate or finely dice the cucumber; crush the garlic with a pinch of salt.
- Stir everything in, with the chopped dill and oil. Season with salt.
- Serve very cold, with chopped walnuts on top.
Ayran — salted yogurt drink
Whisk 1 part yogurt with 1 part cold water and a pinch of salt until frothy. Pour over ice. Nothing else — it is meant to be simple.
Strained yogurt with olive oil
Tip 500 g yogurt into a sieve lined with muslin or a clean tea towel over a bowl and leave it in the fridge for 4 hours (or overnight for a firmer spread). Spread it on a plate, make a dip with a spoon, and fill it with good olive oil, a pinch of salt and paprika or dried mint. Serve with warm bread.
One sachet makes one litre. For the traditional taste, start every litre with a fresh sachet rather than a spoonful of the last batch.
