Sounds delicious!

Would crinkle slicing the cucumbers help with the yoghurt coefficient of adhesion? Your FP likely has an available blade for that.

Thanks! Quite posssibly it would work, but the greatness of cucumber salad is really thin slices. Even now, after a couple of days, the yoghurt is clinging, even though the cucumbers have been soaking long enough to weep some more.

Looking at related recipes (tzatziki sauce, cucumber salad, etc) some have a step where you lightly salt the cucumber slices, let the salt draw out moisture, then pat dry with paper towel. Which sounds like a pain, so your method of full-fat yoghurt at room temp seems better.

It depends on the cucumber. Persians are small, like 5” long and 3/4” diameter. They're much less wet than a standard cucumber, and an ”English” cucumber is somewhere in the middle. The full fat works better than not, but that presupposes you've done something to reduce the water. I drained mine as much as they'd drain. Salt soaks up the water as the slices weep, and will draw a bit from the surface. Some people just use more paper.. If you have a fridge with an evaporator, and space, you can spread the slices on a tray and dry them that way. You always have to do something, and account for the cucumbers weeping even more in making your dressing. What the room temperature yoghurt did is distribute between the slices well without a lot of stirring, and my surmise was the fat helped it cling while being runny.

Just was eating some, and realized I didn't mention fresh dill sprigs. So usual, but the dill needed using and it's SO good!

Thanks, Neely. I’ll keep that in mind. Fresh (from a farm in the garlic capital, thoigh potentially a short holding time at the farm box delivery service) and pungent is certainly what my garlic is. For the meantime, I'm thrilled to have pre-toasted dry that works so perfectly, but As one might be without it, its good to know that fresh and raw can work. I like mint in cucumber salad, too!

I agree about less fresh garlic. I love this recipe but not 2 cloves. It's a great website for Greek food. https://www.mygreekdish.com/recipe/authentic-greek-tzatziki-sauce-recipe/

So much in common, but cucumber salad and tzatziki are so far apart! Interesting site, thanks.

Thinking on it in a more well rested mood, I think for my salad, if I were to use fresh, raw garlic, no matter the age, I'd press it, and repress it, to get the juice and leave the flesh out. I just find hits of raw garlic in a salad annoying. Toasted is much nicer, fresh or dried in a bottle. Very glad to know your tricks, though, and am remembering for when needed.

DD made these mushroom thingys and cross hatched the ends for maximum sauce interaction.

Obvs won’t work with a thin slice of anything though.

Those look delicious!

I also like a cuke salad just sliced cuke dressed with salt, pepper, vinegar, oil and a lot of chopped flat leaf parsley and dill. let it rest for an hour or so at room temp.

Yeah, I make something similar with red wine vinegar, plus whatever interesting spices call me at the time. And a Japanese one, from a Japanese family friend, with rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, lemon juice, sugar and toasted black sesame seeds. And one with ras al hanout, and sometimes I just make up the whole thing on the spot. Cucumbers are marvelous in that they'll adapt to any flavor profile without conflict nor losing their cucumberiness.

So, another advantage to the just right yogurt as dressing is that it it isn't adulterated with vinegar or other dressing stuff, just ”cucumber tears”. And at the end of it, the excess seasoned cucumber water yoghurt could be drunk the way some do the cereal milk. But tastier. ;)

Sounds very fresh and delicious.