Black Sea Haydari is one of the simple and healthy appetizers of Black Sea Cuisine and can be described as a Cold Yoghurt Appetiser with Garlic. This dish is served for lunch or dinner mostly at hot seasons as an appetiser/starter or as a side dish.

Black Sea Haydari consist of very healthy ingredients: strained yogurt, traditional feta cheese, garlic, walnuts, fresh finely chopped dill and mint, butter and salt.

If Black Sea Hydari is served as a side dish it is recommended to serve cold with Black Sea Stone Oven Bread and Black Sea Kiofte.

Black Sea Haydari is very similar to the Black Sea Dzadzik, but saltier, more acidic, thicker in consistency and does not contain cucumbers.

The original recipe of Black Sea Hydari comes from the South Coast of Our Lovely Sea. At the Coasts quite similar dishes are known as Tarator and Dzadzik. But Hydari in consistency is more dense than Dzadzik and much more dense than Tarator soup..

Preparation stage of Black Sea Hydari is extremely simple but takes time if you have plain yoghurt instead of strained. Take a colander and line with two layers of cheesecloth. Put the colander in a large bowl. Place the yogurt on the cheesecloth,  cover the colander and let yoghurt drain overnight or for 8 hours.

There is no actual cooking stage for this dish. Crush the feta cheese with a fork. Finely chop the fresh dill. For mint sauce, heat the butter in a pan and add the mint for a minute. Take aside mint sauce and cool a little.

Place the drained yogurt in a bowl. Grind the garlic cloves and salt into a paste. Separately grind walnuts into a paste. Combine both pastes with yogurt and mix well. Add finely chopped fresh dill and feta cheese and mint sauce to the mixture and mix all ingredients well. Place the mixture on a plate and garnish with chopped dill and mint leaves.

Black Sea Hydari should not be prepared for a long time in advance. Traditionally it is served cold.

You can enjoy Black Sea Hydari with friends and family in #BlackSeaCuisine restaurants or at home as it is very easy to prepare and it is a very healthy dish.

Black Sea Cuisine is simple, tasty and inexpensive.