Whipped Dill Skyr Plate with Edamame, Cucumber, and Almonds
A thick smear of skyr whipped with dill, lemon, and garlic, covered with cold edamame, thick-cut cucumber, sliced radish, arugula, and almonds toasted until they smell warm.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
Nothing in the house and no time to cook turns out to be most Tuesdays, and this is the answer. The whole plate is a tub of skyr, a bag of frozen edamame, and whatever is crisp in the vegetable drawer, and it takes twenty minutes with five of them spent waiting for beans to cook. What makes it a meal rather than a snack plate is how much skyr goes under everything. It is a base, not a dip, and you drag every forkful of vegetable back through it on the way to your mouth.
Whipping is the step that matters. Skyr straight from the tub is dense and a little chalky, and thirty seconds of hard beating with lemon juice and olive oil turns it glossy, loose, and far lighter on the tongue. The dill goes in chopped rather than torn so it disperses into flecks through the whole thing, and the grated garlic has ten minutes in the acid to lose its raw heat before anybody eats it. Cold skyr whips better than skyr that has sat out, so take it from the refrigerator last.
The pleasure here is temperature and contrast. Everything is cold, everything is crisp, and it all sits on something creamy and sour. Edamame have a firm, almost waxy bite, cucumber cut thick gives you a real snap, the radishes are peppery, and the toasted almonds go through all of it. There is enough on the plate that you sit down to it properly. I make two at a time for lunch with somebody, and I have also eaten it alone standing at the window with a fork, which it forgives.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups plain skyr, cold
- 3 cups frozen shelled edamame
- 1 large English cucumber, halved lengthwise and cut into thick half-moons
- 8 radishes, sliced thin
- 3 packed cups arugula
- 1/2 cup whole almonds, toasted and roughly chopped
- 1/3 cup chopped fresh dill, plus a few fronds to finish
- 4 scallions, sliced thin
- 2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice, plus the zest of 1 lemon
- 1 1/2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, grated to a paste
- 1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Cook and cool the edamame: Bring a saucepan of water to a boil, add the frozen edamame, and cook four to five minutes from the moment the water returns to the boil, until the beans are bright green and tender with a firm center. Drain and run them under cold water until they are completely cool, then spread them on a towel to dry.
- Toast the almonds: Put the almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat and shake the pan every twenty seconds or so for five to six minutes, until they smell warm and nutty and are speckled brown when you break one open. Tip them straight onto a board to stop the cooking, cool, and chop them roughly.
- Whip the skyr: Put the cold skyr in a bowl with the lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, grated garlic, salt, and half the black pepper. Beat hard with a whisk for about thirty seconds. It will go from stiff and matte to glossy and loose enough to spread. Fold in the chopped dill and let it sit ten minutes so the garlic softens.
- Cut the vegetables for crunch: Halve the cucumber lengthwise and cut it into half-moons a good half inch thick, which keeps a real snap where thin slices would go floppy on the plate. Slice the radishes as thin as you can. Keep both dry and do not dress them, because the skyr underneath is doing that job.
- Build the plates: Divide the whipped skyr among four wide plates and spread each into a thick swoop with the back of a spoon, leaving a rim of plate showing. Pile the edamame, cucumber, radish, and arugula over the middle, letting them overlap rather than sit in neat sections.
- Finish and eat: Scatter the scallions, the chopped almonds, the reserved dill fronds, and the rest of the black pepper over the top. Serve straight away, and eat by dragging each forkful of vegetable down through the skyr rather than stirring anything together.
Variations
- Cucumber and mint: Swap half the dill for torn mint and add lemon zest to the vegetables for a cooler, sweeter plate.
- Smoked fish: Lay a few flakes of smoked trout over the top, which suits the dill and turns the plate into something closer to a Scandinavian lunch.
- Sesame: Use toasted sesame seeds in place of the almonds and add a teaspoon of sesame oil to the skyr.
- Chickpea: Use chickpeas in place of the edamame for a softer, floury bite and a plate that holds even longer in a container.
- Green and hot: Grate a serrano chile into the skyr along with the garlic for a plate with a slow heat under all that cold.
Storage & Leftovers
The whipped skyr keeps four days in a sealed container and thickens as it sits, so beat in a teaspoon of lemon juice before you use it again. The dill goes darker after day two but the flavor holds, and the garlic gets noticeably stronger overnight.
The vegetables should be cut the day you eat them. Cucumber weeps within hours of being sliced and radishes go rubbery at the edges. Cooked edamame is the exception and keeps four days, so boil the whole bag at once and pull from it through the week.
For a packed version, put the whipped skyr in the bottom of a wide container, pack the vegetables and almonds on top, and lid it. Four hours later everything is still separate and still cold, and you stir it once with a fork. It does not freeze in any form.
Notes & Tips
- Whip it cold: Skyr that has warmed on the counter goes grainy under the whisk. Take it out of the refrigerator when the almonds come off the heat and not before.
- Give the garlic ten minutes: Grated raw garlic is harsh for the first few minutes and then settles into the acid. Whip it in early and let the bowl sit while you cut vegetables.
- Cut the cucumber thick: Half-inch half-moons snap. Thin slices go limp on contact with anything creamy and take the best texture on the plate with them.
- Cool the edamame all the way: Warm beans melt the skyr into a puddle. Run them under cold water until they feel genuinely cold in your hand.
- Spread, do not dollop: A thick swoop across the whole plate means every forkful gets some. A mound in the middle means the last third of the vegetables arrive plain.
- Toast more almonds than you need: They keep a week in a jar and five minutes of attention is the same whether you do half a cup or two cups.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Skyr, edamame, and almonds are the three things holding this plate up. The skyr is the creamy base and carries most of the protein and calcium, the edamame add a firm bite and more protein still, and the almonds give the fat that makes a cold plate genuinely satisfying.
- Skyr is strained for a long time, which is what makes it thick and sour and why so much protein and calcium end up in a single spoonful. Whipped with lemon and olive oil it loosens into something that spreads, and it stays creamy on the tongue rather than chalky.
- Edamame are young soybeans, sweeter and firmer than the dried kind, and they bring protein, fiber, and folate to a plate with no meat on it. Cooked four minutes and cooled fast, they keep the waxy snap that makes them worth eating cold.
- Almonds toasted in a dry pan taste twice as strong as raw ones, and they carry calcium, vitamin E, and magnesium along with their crunch. Chopped roughly rather than sliced, they hold their texture against everything wet on the plate.
- Dill, lemon zest, radish, and black pepper are what keep this from tasting flat. The dill goes grassy through the skyr, the zest is sharper and more perfumed than the juice, and the radishes bring the small peppery bite that wakes the whole plate up.
- As you eat, notice how the cold skyr changes each vegetable it touches, and take the plate somewhere you can sit down, since a lunch this quick to make deserves more than four standing minutes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use Greek yogurt instead?
Yes, and it whips the same way. Skyr is thicker and more sour, so with Greek yogurt you may want a little less lemon juice, and it will spread a bit looser on the plate. Both are good, and I would use whichever is already open.
Is there anything else to put on top?
Almost anything crisp and cold works. Snap peas, shaved fennel, celery, sliced snow peas, or halved cherry tomatoes all belong here. Keep one thing peppery, one thing sweet, and one thing that genuinely crunches, and the plate keeps its shape.
My skyr will not whip. What happened?
It was probably not cold enough, or it was beaten with a spoon rather than a whisk. Take it straight from the refrigerator, use a balloon whisk, and go hard for a full thirty seconds. The lemon juice and olive oil are what let it loosen, so do not leave either out.
Can I make this ahead for the week?
The skyr base, yes, and it is worth doing. Whip a double batch on Sunday. Cut the vegetables the morning you eat them and boil the edamame once for the whole week, and each plate takes about four minutes to build.