Upgrade Boring Fish Sandwiches With A Dollop Of This Greek Sauce

If you're going to all the trouble of frying up fish for sandwiches — the dredging, the dipping, the temperature tango, and the eventual cooking oil disposal — your ancillary ingredients should be excellent, too. You can build a better fish sandwich with some studious seasonings, a nicely toasted bun, and a less expected condiment than the tartar you might be used to. The Greek staple tzatziki, for example, is just the spread to help you reel in a fish sandwich win.

Tzatziki stirs at least cucumber and garlic into a strained yogurt base. Salt and extra virgin olive oil are also pretty typical, with a bit of lemon only slightly less so, but little tzatziki adaptations are everywhere. You can more or less proportion it all to taste; chop more garlic cloves should you prefer a particularly pungent bite, or go easy on the cucumbers if you prefer to make the veggies more of a garnish. You can even calibrate your tzatziki for fish sandwiches in particular, more so than if you were simply adding it to a crudités plate.

Most supermarkets and grocery stores are likely to be stocked with at least one tzatziki variety, but it's also super easy to make on your own. It's also a great way to use up any leftover cukes watching the clock in the crisper drawer, yogurt approaching expiry, and garlic that you can't remember buying. A fairly mild blend adds about half a chopped cucumber and a garlic clove or two to 1 cup of Greek yogurt. The aforementioned pinch of salt is also never a bad idea.

Be careful to omit other fluid ingredients when dedicating tzatziki to fried fish, which is meant to be crisp. Once fried fish drains on a few paper towels, it can seem to lose its appealing crunch in a snap. Minimizing moisture can help maintain its ideal texture for a little longer. A thick tzatziki doesn't breach that rigid fry too much in the time it takes to eat a fried fish sandwich, but the more you thin tzatziki out with common add-ins, such as lemon juice, the more liquid can seep into your precious fried breading. A bit of lemon zest, instead, has a similar effect without any added drips or drops. Even deseeding your cucumbers to eliminate excess water can keep your tzatziki thick and your fish sandwich crunchy.