Greek Recipes with May Lerios: Straining

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Straining yogurt.

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Straining grated cucumber.

Straining is simply the removal of water. For example, you can strain pasta, or yogurt. The basic idea is to place the object you want strained inside a strong membrane that allows only the water to go through, then suspend the membrane above ground and let the gravity pull the water downwards, and through the membane, leaving behind strained matter. Here is a sample setup for straining yogurt:

As a membrane use a filter for a coffee maker. Even simpler, use four stacked paper towels (must be very absorbent, but must not tear when they get wet). Why not a pasta strainer? Well, a strainer is a membrane designed to strain ingredients of large size like pasta: the pasta itself is bigger than the holes in the strainer, so only water can go through. But a strainer cannot strain yogurt because the yogurt itself can also go through the strainer's holes... So, for yogurt, we need a membrane with smaller holes: a coffee filter of paper towels have small enough holes that yogurt can't go through (in fact, they are so small that you can't see them with the naked eye).
Stretch the membrane over the top of a deep bowl, and affix it. For example, use scotch tape to affix the membrane onto the bowl. Even simpler, stretch a rubber band around the bowl and insert the membrane between the rubber band and the bowl.
Pour the yogurt onto the membrane. The weight of the yogurt will make the membrane dip slightly into the bowl: make sure the bowl is deep enough that there is still ample empty space between the bottom of the membrane and the bottom of the bowl. Why? Because that's where the water will collect. How much empty space? As much as needed to contain the removed water.
Set this contraption aside to let the water drain into the bowl. The waiting time depends on the amount of water you want to remove, the membrane, what you are straining, and other factors; as a rule of thumb, it takes 4-5 hours for 4 cups unstrained yogurt to turn into 1.3 cups strained yogurt. If your membrane is very absorbent, like paper towels, it might absorb water all the way to the edge of the membrane (yes, moving against gravity), so some water might drip outside the bowl; if so, place the bowl in the sink, or over a plate larger than the bowl's outer edge.
Remove the tape or rubber band carefully, making sure you don't let the membrane fall inside the bowl. Turn the membrane upside down over a clean, empty bowl, and the yogurt will fall out. The reason you shouldn't try to scoop the strained yogurt from the original setup is that it's easy to rip the membrane by accident and have the strained yogurt fall into the water collected inside the bowl.