Add yogurt to a hot dish just before serving. Take it out of the refrigerator ahead of time so it loses its chill, and mix in the garlic at the last minute. Plate the hot food, spoon the yogurt over it or alongside it, then pour on the sizzling oil last. Do not stir the yogurt into the pot or leave it sitting on the food. With dumplings, kebabs, and eggplant dishes, the hot and cool elements meet on the plate just before eating.
Pairing hot food with yogurt creates a contrast that brings out the flavor: cool yogurt over hot dumplings, or a tangy note beside roasted eggplant. If yogurt sits on the food for too long, the contrast fades: the yogurt warms, thins, and releases liquid, while the food cools. Yogurt stirred into a pot can split and become grainy from the heat; the rules for cooking yogurt in soup are covered in a separate tip. That is why serving yogurt meets the food on the plate, at the last minute.
Yogurt straight from the refrigerator is very cold and sits in a thick layer on hot food, cooling it all at once and resisting spreading with a spoon. So take it out of the refrigerator a little while before serving and leave it on the counter only until it loses its chill; yogurt left at room temperature for a long time turns sour. You can tell it is ready by how it falls from the spoon: it should drop in a fluid ribbon and spread on the plate by itself. Thin very thick strained yogurt with a few spoonfuls of water.
Make garlic yogurt shortly before serving. Crush the garlic with a pinch of salt in a mortar and stir it into the yogurt; salt and garlic draw liquid out of the yogurt, so garlic yogurt prepared too early can separate in the bowl. Do not whisk the yogurt for long; stir only until smooth, since whisking makes it thinner. A separate tip explains why cold yogurt sauces split; stirring briefly and gently also helps delay separation in yogurt served with hot food. Adjust the amount of garlic by tasting as you go.
Keep the plating order the same. First put the hot food on the plate: dumplings or kebab in the center, roasted eggplant underneath. Spoon the yogurt over the food or spread it alongside; cover the dumplings, while kebab is usually served with yogurt beside it or over the pita. Pour sizzling butter or pepper oil over the yogurt last. Oil poured earlier ends up beneath the yogurt, and its color and aroma are lost. As soon as the oil sizzles onto the plate, serve it without waiting.
For a crowded table, serve the yogurt in a separate bowl instead of plating it individually. This works especially well if some people want to eat without yogurt or plates are being filled at different times: put the garlic yogurt in a bowl to share, and let everyone add it to their own plate. In this case, keep the sizzling oil in a separate small dish or pour it over the yogurt bowl at serving time. Do not prepare yogurt-topped plates and leave them waiting in the kitchen; bring them to the table as soon as each plate is assembled. Keep a serving spoon by the yogurt bowl and use that same spoon for every plate.