Mast va Khiar

So, there’s one thing about myself I cannot stand; my lactose intolerance. It makes eating some rather tasty treats rather painful. But there’s one kind of dairy food I will eat despite the pain. And that food is Persian Yogurt (aka Mast). It’s my favorite kind of yogurt and you can’t find it in stores. But you can make it! And I’ll share my family recipe with you. Here it is!

Ingredients:

- 1 ½ cups of plain Yogurt
- 1 cucumber
- 1 ½ tbsp fresh mint, chopped finely OR 2 tsp dried mint, crushed
- Salt
- Pepper

Line a colander with a thin cloth and set the yogurt in it. Peel the cucumber and soak in salted water. Pick up the cloth with the yogurt inside and squeeze out much of the water and scrape into a bowl. Grate cucumber and squeeze most of the water out of it as well; add to the yogurt… season with salt & pepper to taste. Add mint and mix well. Serve.

Serves: 3-4

You can make large batches of this delicious yogurt by using a 1:1.5 ratio of cucumber to yogurt, and putting enough dried mint on top to make it look like a mountain covered in green snow. Plenty on the top center, gradually growing thinner to none as it gets to the outer edges of the bowl.

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