Tzatziki

Name: Tzatziki
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Greek
Ingredients: 2 cups Greek yogurt, strained; 1 English cucumber, grated and squeezed dry; 2 cloves garlic, minced or grated; 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to finish; 1 tablespoon fresh dill, chopped; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; Salt, to taste

Serve when

Keep a bowl going in the kitchen at all times — this family drops it, remakes it, and never runs out.

In the movie

Theatrical

00:09:50 In the chaos of the family restaurant, Dancing Zorba's, on a typical morning — 'You dropped my tzatziki, Angelo!' — one more dish moving through a kitchen that never slows down

It shows up for exactly one line — someone drops a bowl of it in the crush of a normal morning at Dancing Zorba's, the family restaurant, and gets yelled at for it — but that throwaway beat is the whole point of the film's opening stretch: this family's kitchen never actually stops moving, even before a wedding is on the horizon. This is a reconstruction of a standard tzatziki — the film names the dish in passing but shows no recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups Greek yogurt, strained
1 English cucumber, grated and squeezed dry
2 cloves garlic, minced or grated
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to finish
1 tablespoon fresh dill, chopped
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Salt, to taste

Method

Grate the cucumber and squeeze it hard in a clean towel to remove as much water as possible — a watery tzatziki is the only real way to ruin it.
Stir the yogurt, cucumber, garlic, olive oil, dill, and lemon juice together.
Season with salt and let it sit at least 30 minutes for the flavors to settle.
Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and serve cold, with bread or alongside the lamb.