Tarator
A cold Balkan soup of cucumber, yoghurt, garlic and dill thinned with water, finished with a trickle of oil.
Photograph credit: TaratorBg (image of tarator on Wikidata Q57332578) by Ikonact · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Tarator: Step by Step
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Whisk the yoghurt with the water, garlic and salt until smooth.
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Stir in the cucumber and most of the dill.
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Chill for 1 hour.
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Taste and adjust the salt. Serve in bowls with the oil, walnuts and the rest of the dill on top.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Things to Watch For
- Thin the yoghurt slowly.
- Crush the garlic with salt.
- Chill the soup well before serving.
- Add ice cubes to the bowls on a very hot day.
Common Substitutions & Variations
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Good to Know About Tarator
In the Balkans, tarator is eaten on the hottest days of summer, when a hot dish is unthinkable. It is a cold soup of cucumber and yoghurt, thinned with water until it can be sipped from a bowl, and it takes about 10 minutes to put together.
Grate or finely chop the cucumber. Fine pieces release their juice into the soup, while large ones stay in chunks. Crush the garlic with a pinch of salt into a paste, so it spreads through the soup without any raw bites. Thin the yoghurt gradually. Add water a little at a time and whisk until it has the texture of single cream.
Dill gives the soup its freshness. Chop it finely and stir it in at the end. A drizzle of oil on top softens the sharpness of the yoghurt.
Chill the soup for an hour before serving, and serve it very cold.
What to Serve It With
Crusty bread · Grilled vegetables · Fried fish · Olives
Storing Leftovers
Keeps in the fridge for 1 day. Stir before serving.
Common Questions
How long does Tarator take to make?
10 minutes of preparation and of cooking, plus 1 hour of Chilling, so allow 1 hour 10 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 4.
Tarator Nutrition Facts
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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