The other day at the store I noticed they had some ground lamb and decided to grab some, figuring I’d make a burger of some sort. I let the idea bubble in my head as I went through the store and decided I would most definitely want some slices of roasted lemon to go with this. Then last night it hit me, Lamb burger with roasted lemon and Tzatziki sauce.
Here’s the finished burger, recipe for Tzatziki follows.
Seriously, delicious!
Tzatziki, while a pain in the ass to spell is actually quite easy to make.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Greek style yogurt*
1 cucumber peeled, seeded and diced
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh mint
3-4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
Salt to taste
Method:
Put everything except 1/2 of the cucumber and salt into a food processor and blend smooth. Add remaining half of cucumber and pulse a couple of times, you want some texture to this. Salt to taste. The entire photo set is here.
Makes about 2 cups, great for dipping pita slices into, or topping a burger like I did.
*Greek style yogurt is thicker than regular yogurt, it’s starting to show up in major food chains under the brand “Fage” (Fay-eh) if you can’t find it, take two and half cups of regular plain yogurt, put it in cheesecloth, and tie it around a wooden spoon, then hang over a bowl for a few hours. As in this picture.
After a couple of hours more than a cup of liquid had come out of the yogurt and I was left with this.
As for the roasted lemon, take a whole lemon and wash it well using a vegetable scrubber (you’ll be eating the whole thing). Slice the lemon into equal thickness slices about an 1/8th of an inch, place on a pan, drizzle with olive oil and roast in a 400F oven for 15-20 minutes, watch carefully and turn the slices over so they don’t over brown on one side.
You can remove and pits before or after roasting.
ENJOY!
Charles
