Name: Cucumber Salad With Garlicky Dill Yogurt
Yield: Serves 2 to 4
Ingredients: 1½ cups plain, unsweetened Greek-style yogurt; 1½ Tbsp. chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnish; 1 large garlic clove, minced; ¾ tsp. kosher salt; Freshly ground black pepper; 1 pound small Persian (or larger seedless) cucumbers, unpeeled; ½ small red onion, very thinly sliced; 1 Tbsp. plain or white-wine vinegar; 2 Tbsp. olive oil; ½ tsp. kosher salt; Freshly ground black pepper and/or red-pepper flakes, to taste

Cucumber wedges sliced red onions chopped dill and black pepper on a plate with a garlicky dill yogurt.

Photo by Deb Perelman

This is what happens when your favorite part of tzatziki is the cucumbers, so you amplify them until they’re dramatic, crunchy, and fork-spearable. The proportions are upended, and the cucumbers, lifted out of the yogurt, are encouraged (you encourage your cucumbers, don’t you?) to be their coldest and most refreshing selves, erasing, I hope, any bad memories of the softer, swimming-in-dressing-style cucumber salad. These cucumbers are tossed in vinegar and oil with some thinly sliced red onion, and the sharp garlic-and-dill yogurt dressing stays underneath, with no chance to make anything soggy. If my balcony garden is overflowing with mint, I sometimes add to the yogurt an amount of mint equal to the dill.

This recipe was excerpted from 'Smitten Kitchen Keepers' by Deb Perelman. Buy the full book on Amazon.