To make thick yogurt cream

Place low fat or nonfat yogurt in a strainer, cover, and drain in refrigerator overnight (minimum 4 hours). Yogurt will acquire the consistency of cream cheese.

The draining may be continued for several days, with the cream gradually getting thicker day by day. Thickened yogurt cream may be stored in the refrigerator for at least a week.

A fine strainer, such as you buy in a kitchen store, is preferred. The coarser mesh, available in hardware stores, will work well enough, but will pass through a little of the yogurt.

For a discussion of thick yogurt cream, see Sauce Section.

The red pepper and olives, whether black or green, make a nice color display.

Spread crackers with thick yogurt cream. On each cracker place an anchovy fillet, or half an olive, or a strip of red pepper, or spread with liverwurst and capers. Arrange on the tray and serve. The trouble with h’ors d’oevres is over.

Variation

If you are serving a small group around a single table, you need not prepare a tray. Place the thick yogurt cream in a bowl, the anchovies and other items on a plate, and let guests help themselves.

This is a lovely way, delicious and colorful, to employ fresh basil and cherry tomatoes.

Spread crackers with thick yogurt cream. Split cherry tomatoes and remove stems. Place tomatoes cut side down on the yogurt. Distribute chopped basil around the tomatoes.

CREAM CHEESE AND THICK YOGURT CREAM

In its era cream cheese was as essential for appetizer spreads as shredded wheat for breakfast. The latter retains its presence but cream cheese has all but disappeared, for dietary reasons. Today you may well be raising your kids on shredded wheat, but probably not on the cream cheese and jelly sandwiches of yesteryear.

Cream cheese was used sometimes in sandwiches, notably cream cheese and jelly, or cream cheese and olive.

But by far its greatest use was as a spread on crackers or croutons. An ingredient might be used as topping, or stirred into the cream cheese. Either was called a tea canapé.

CREAM CHEESE SPREADS REVISITED

Cream cheese with toppings were possibly most successful when the topping was too sweet or too salty to be tolerated by itself.

Spread the crackers with thick yogurt cream, the same as you would cream cheese. Add the deviled ham, current jelly, anchovy, or caviar. Deviled ham is improved by stirring in a little balsamic vinegar.

Perhaps more generally an ingredient was chopped and stirred into the cream cheese. Irma Rombauer in The Joy of Cooking (1975 edition) catalogued various uses. Some of these are presented below, as an idea list. For these and other items some judgment and experimentation is necessary. Not everything that goes well with cream cheese will go equally well with yogurt.

Place thick yogurt cream in bowl and stir in minced olives or other ingredients. Serve with crackers immediately or refrigerate until needed.

Current flavorings can come from Mediterranean, Indian, and Middle Eastern sources.

In our household we frequently use Calamata olives, chopped fine, which seem to go particularly well with yogurt.

Or, we stir in capers. This goes particularly well with pate and cornichons.

Stir in roasted red peppers, chopped fine. If you puree the red peppers first, you will then have a pink yogurt, like pink mayonnaise.

Stir in roasted cumin seeds. (See Basics). Include roasted crushed coriander seeds, if desired. 

For a change, try taglia. Crush coriander seeds with a mortar and pestle. Mash some garlic with a little salt. Place all in a small steel or cast iron pan. Heat a few minutes until the mixture smells sweet. (Taglia is used in the Middle East as a flavoring for meatballs, and stews generally.)