Yogurt Drink - Ayran

[erfurkan]

Hello everyone,

It has always annoyed me that this wonderful savory drink was not popular outside of a very small region in the world. I am talking about Ayran of course. It is just equal weight of yogurt, water (and a bit of milk to balance the acidity if you want) and enough salt to make it taste like ocean water. Whisk them vigorously and you have ayran! Seriously you will need more salt than you think you need.

The yogurt used for making ayran is not strained like a greek yogurt. It should be turkish or bulgarian style yogurt. Thick but not dense. f you only have access to greek yogurt, I think you will need more water. You should find your sweet spot on consistency and taste.

It is a really basic formula but you will need to give it a shot to understand its greatness. Maybe more than one try because foreigners tend to find it too salty. But once you get used to it, you will always want it on your table for lunch and dinner. It is quite refreshing. Oh I also should mention that you need to drink it cold.

It goes well with spicy food, meaty courses, chicken courses, with rice etc.

Let me know your thoughts if you decide to try it.

[erfurkan]

Also, you can think of it as the drinkabe cousin of caciki. Hell, in Turkey caciki is made runny intentionally like a soup, while its Greek counterpart is thick.

You can add seasonings in it too. By far the most famous one is fresh mint leaves.

[mikekchar]

Salt lassi seems to be essentially the same thing.  I can confirm that it's incredible -- especially on a hot summer day.  I never would have believed it until I tried it myself.

[erfurkan]

Hey mikekchar,

I haven't heard of salt lassi. After some googling, I can confirm the recipe looks the same. But the appearance is oddly not similar. Maybe it is because of the type of yogurt those recipes used. But in the end they are both tangy, salty, runny but with some body, cold and refreshing goodness!

In fact, I am writing this while I drink ice cold ayran with meatballs in this winter day.

By the way, adding some milk seems to be improving the taste quite a lot. I used 1 part yogurt, 0.9 part water, 0.3 part milk for this one.