Relief for a hot month of Ramadan

It takes about 35 years for Ramadan to travel through the solar calendar, so it will be a good seven or eight years before it leaves summer for the shorter, milder days of spring.

Until then, Boston-area Muslims have a bevy of dishes for either suhur, an early morning breakfast that precedes the fast, or iftar, the meal after the fast, with which to sustain them during this fasting month. Kiranoglu’s go-to summer recipe is cacik, a combination of yogurt, cucumbers, fresh dill, and mint, which can be served thin for a soup, or thick for a tangy bread dip. “If you go to any house in Turkey, they give you this,’’ says Kiranoglu, who learned the recipe watching his mother in the kitchen and, as the oldest of six children, knew how to make cacik by the time he was 9 or 10.

Cacik has several advantages during a hot summer Ramadan. It is fast, easy, and doesn’t require an oven or stove, and the yogurt helps rehydrate the body after a long day without fluids. It is also deliciously refreshing, as soup and dip, led by the saltiness of the yogurt, followed by the tanginess of the dill, finished with the sweetness of the mint.

Ahmad Yasin, owner of Yasin Culinary, a catering company and cooking class studio in Watertown that specialize in Arabic cooking, also has fond memories of Ramadan in northern Syria, where he grew up. “The most beautiful time of the day is when everyone is rushing home after work, before iftar, to be with the family and prepare the food,’’ says Yasin.