Gyros

John and I had gyros today... it turned into quite a mess.

I started the process yesterday, I was using Alton Brown's recipe for both gyro meat and tzatziki sauce. You can find the recipe here. I chose to use the rotisserie method, this is what ended up being my mistake. At first everything was going well.

I chopped and drained the onion (I could not believe how much water is in an onion!) added the spices and 1 lb each lamb and beef. Next you form the loaf and wrap it in saran wrap. This part worked fairly easily. I basically tossed everything into a food processor and processed until I had a well incorporated paste. I refrigerated my loaf for about 20 hours.

In the meantime I began the tzatziki sauce. This was what I was most worried about, but it turned out to be REALLY easy. I bought Greek yogurt instead of straining regular yogurt. (Don't worry I got it on sale so it wasn't so expensive!) Before starting the meat I had peeled, seeded and finely chopped a cucumber so it had been draining. I put everything for the sauce (primarily cucumber, yogurt, mint and garlic)  in the freshly cleaned food processor. The sauce came out tasting fantastic! Not exactly what I've had in restaurants, but it was still very good.

Next I decided to try and tackle pita bread. I used this recipe. It was super easy and the pita bread came out tasting exactly like I've had in Greek restaurants. (Except mine weren't as pretty and round) It took about six minutes for the pita to be ready. I couldn't wait and last night I immediately had some pita with tzatziki, it was awesome!

Today John caramelized some onions and cut up some tomatoes while the meat was on the rotisserie out on the grill. I went to check on the meat and turn down the heat only to find that my loaf had fallen apart! The tin foil we had put down had luckily caught all the meat though. I ended up cooking the meat as if it were just hamburgers and then had to try to slice it. My gyro meat turned into basically ground beef in large chunks. :(

The good news was the flavor was definitely there and we had yummy if not authentic gyros. Next time though I think I'll try the meatloaf method...


As a side note, John also made chips to go with the gyros. We had both russet potatoes and sweet potatoes that we sliced and fried. They were also delicious!