Kitchen Tactics

Creative Leftovers: Tzatziki Sauce Becomes Marinade

Posted on June 19th, 2009, by Bryce

: Image by st_gleam via Flickr

I cringe every time I have to throw away leftovers, but eating yesterdays dinner for lunch isn’t always an exciting prospect either. Sometimes I stumble upon a way to incorporate leftovers in a new dish different enough to make a great meal. My wife has called me the leftover master (I’m hoping that wasn’t an underhanded compliment). I recently had great success reusing a tzatziki sauce as a marinade on the grill and will definitely follow the same tactic sometime soon.

Summer has arrived in Seattle and amazingly we have had almost 30 days without rain. We took advantage and went on a picnic. I whipped up some tzatziki sauce to accompany some pita bread and my wife’s specialty pollo con rajas .

Tzatziki Sauce

2 (8 ounce) containers plain yogurt

2 cucumbers – peeled, seeded and diced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 lemon, juiced

salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

3 cloves garlic, peeled

In a food processor or blender, combine yogurt, cucumber, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, dill and garlic. Process until well-combined. Transfer to a separate dish, cover and refrigerate for at least one hour for best flavor.

We actually halved this recipe, 16 ounces of sauce would have been a little too much serving 4 even when reusing the sauce later. At the park we filled our home baked pita with pollo con rajas and topped with tzatziki sauce. It was a Mideast/Mexican fusion that worked pretty well. The citrus, cucumber and yogurt were very refreshing for a summer day.

A few days later we decided to do some grilling. Luckily I had remembered seeing a recipe in Secret Ingredients by Michael Roberts with a grilled chicken marinade very similar to my tzatziki sauce. We had about 4 ounces of sauce left, to this I added a 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary. I poured this mixture over a halved and cleaned chicken in a glass dish and refrigerated. The chicken marinated for about 6 hours. We grilled the chicken with and served with an accompaniment of vegetables (grilled mushrooms, red and green peppers, and onion).

In Secret Ingredients, Michael reserves the marinade from the chicken to create a sauce. He combines it with 2 cups chicken broth and boils over high heat until thickened. I actually gave this a shot but the sauce broke and was a little over salted. I think the breakdown may have been the yogurt being over mixed. Oh well the leftover master can only stretch it so far.

Any creative leftover stories? I would love to hear from you.