Tzatziki - Traditional Recipe is the sauce treated as method rather than as a finished object: the specific, unhurried technique that separates a proper batch from a quick approximation. The angle is process discipline. Four steps decide the result, and a traditional recipe is essentially a set of instructions about draining, draining again, and not rushing. Get the technique right and the rest is seasoning; get it wrong and no amount of adjustment at the end recovers it.
The order is exact. First, yogurt is strained, hung in cloth or a fine sieve until it is dense enough to hold a spoon upright, because the entire body of the sauce depends on starting thick. Second, cucumber is grated, salted, left to weep, then wrung out by hand until it stops releasing liquid, since cucumber water is the single thing most likely to ruin a batch hours after it is made. Third, raw garlic is crushed to a paste and folded in. Fourth, olive oil is whisked in for richness, then vinegar or lemon for cut, and dill is stirred through at the very end. Good execution shows as a thick, cohesive sauce that does not separate or pool after sitting, with garlic, acid, and herb all distinct. Sloppy execution skips the draining, blends everything in one go, or seasons before the water has been removed, and the result thins out and goes flat within the hour no matter how carefully it was tasted at the start.
The method shifts at the margins by cook and household. The acid may be red-wine vinegar for a sharper edge or lemon for a brighter one; the herb is most often dill but sometimes mint. Some recipes rest the finished sauce so the garlic settles and the flavors marry before serving. What does not shift in the traditional approach is the sequence and the patience, particularly the double insistence on draining both yogurt and cucumber. As a dish to spoon up with bread rather than wrap inside it, the mezze presentation deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here. Followed properly, this recipe is what every good wrap in the catalog quietly depends on.