Homemade Gyros

I love Greek food but I don’t get to have it often. A few weeks ago I stumbled upon an Alton Brown recipe for Gyros and decided to try it (you can find it here). Honestly, Gyros was one of those things that I never thought about making at home since the meat is usually cooked on a vertical roasting spit but this recipe calls for making a meat loaf which suits me a lot more.

To start off with: garlic, dried marjoram, rosemary, oregano, salt, pepper and grated onions. Make sure to wring your grated onions in a dishcloth or else they will give off too much liquid and the meatloaf might not hold together well.

After I had mixed the ground lamb in I put it on a baking sheet to cook. When making meat loaf I usually put a rack on top of a baking sheet, cover it with aluminum foil, spray it with Pam and then poke small holes into the foil. This allows the air to circulate better and the fat to fall down below.

While that was in the oven I started on the tzatziki sauce. You grate a cucumber and then wring it out in a dishcloth to get the liquid out. Keep in mind that the longer you leave the sauce in the fridge the better it will taste so if you can make it ahead of time do so.

Then you add Greek yogurt, salt, pepper, lots of garlic, lemon juice and mint. I also added dill afterwards.

All mixed together.

All gyros need tomatoes, cucumbers and sliced red onions as an accompaniment.

I actually have a rather hard time finding Greek pita bread at my supermarket, they tend to usually just have flat Middle Eastern style pita but this weekend I was in luck.

I put in a meat thermometer into the lamb to make sure it was cooked properly. Some of the juices puddled on top of the meat which looks a bit weird in the picture but the meatloaf was cooked through.

One big difference between this recipe and the gyros you will get in a restaurant is that the meat in these is a lot less dense so you will have to cut the meatloaf in fairly thick slices so it doesn’t fall apart.

To assemble them I cut two slices of meat, piled them along with some tomatoes, onions and cucumbers on top of a warmed pita bread (I just microwaved them for 10 seconds) and spooned on some tzatziki sauce.

These were good. I was really craving Greek food so I was really happy with these. The flavour of the meat is pretty much spot on what you will get in a restaurant. The texture is of course different but it is still tasty which is what counts. I piled on more tzaziki sauce after I took this picture since it is pretty much my favourite part of eating gyros. With the garlic and the raw onions this is not first date food but happily I am married so I get to eat smelly food whenever I please. This was surprisingly fast to make, the prep was maybe 15 minutes in total and it is a very easy recipe to make for a crowd since it doubles easily.

del.icio.us Tags: Greek Food,Gyros

Moussaka

Sometimes there are things that I cook that are not particularly photogenic but taste oh so good. Moussaka is a really good example of this since everything just tends to ooze deliciously together. This was my first time making this and I was so glad that I gave it a try. I don’t know much about Greek food but I would imagine that this is Greece’s answer to the concept of comfort food.

The recipe starts off with ground lamb and browned onions with salt, pepper, ground cinnamon, a pinch of cloves and a pinch of allspice. Growing up we didn’t really eat lamb at home but The Husband and I both love it. and try to include it in the rotation.

The original recipe I had seen didn’t have potatoes but I really wanted to add them. I spoke to someone at work who is Greek and he said that there are versions with and without potatoes so I didn’t transgress any rules of Moussaka making by adding them. Since I wanted to make sure that they would be cooked thoroughly I sliced the potatoes and put them in the oven while I prepared the filling and the topping.

When the lamb was completely cooked I added in white wine and tomato paste and let it simmer to allow all the flavours come together.

I also chopped up a generous amount of parsley and chucked it in the pot.

 

The béchamel sauce was pretty straightforward except that the recipe called for an unpronounceable Greek cheese that I have never seen at the grocery store. Since I didn’t know what the said cheese tastes like I just ended up shredding some of each kind of cheese that I found in the fridge: strong cheddar, parmesan and some random French cheese.

I of course, also added salt, pepper and nutmeg. All béchamel needs some nutmeg or else it just isn’t right.

At this point I took my potatoes out of the oven and started putting the Moussaka together.

I added the meat filling directly onto the potatoes followed by..

the eggplants. Pretty much any recipe that uses eggplants will tell you to salt them and let them drain due to bitterness. I never do this, I honestly don’t taste any. Buying smaller eggplants also helps since they have less seeds and it is the seeds that can taste bitter. I just sliced my eggplants, I didn’t bother to peel them, and laid them on the meat.

Last to go on top was the béchamel sauce and then everything went into the oven to cook.

After roughly an hour the béchamel was golden and bubbly and ready to come out of the oven.

If I had a Greek grandmother I think she would be proud of my Moussaka making attempt. This was really, really good and not as much work as I thought it would be. It is no more labour intensive than making a lasagne and the results are so worth it. Since I cut into it when it was hot it didn’t really retain its shape so it didn’t photograph particularly well. Tasted great though which is what counts in the end.

Greek-Spiced Lamb Meatballs

I personally love lamb. Growing up my mom never liked lamb so we never ate it but as an adult I've added it to our repertoire. I could pretty much eat chicken and never get sick of it, it is the animal world's equivalent of tofu; a blanket canvas of protein. The Husband however, gets tired of chicken fast so I make efforts to add more non-chicken meals to the rotation.

The latest issue of Fine Cooking had a recipe for Greek spiced lamb meatballs (you can fine it here) which looked like something The Husband would like. My husband has a ton of food allergies and the taste buds of a five year old so cooking for him is always a challenge.


As always, I have attempted to sprinkle my spices in a decorative pattern so it will look nice an pretty on my blog. In the bowl you can see

-ground lamb
-half an onion
-chopped parsley
-dried mint (I didn't have any fresh)
-dried oregano (I don't even think they sell this fresh at my supermarket)
-cinnamon
-paprika
-sea salt
-pepper
-allspice

The recipe calls for soaking fresh bread crumbs in milk and then adding them to the lamb mixture but I just couldn't be bothered with this step. I usually cut down the steps in a recipe because I already spend enough time in the kitchen as it is and I need to save time whenever I can. Oh yes, I also added an egg and some dried breadcrumbs afterward and mixed it all together.

I made little meatballs with small ice cream scoop (utterly indispensable for this and for making cookies) and put them to cook in the oven. The recipe calls for baking them in the oven and in general I find that this works much better than browning them on the stove. Often on the stove it is hard to get them to brown evenly, you have to cook multiple batches, you risk having them break apart when you're moving them etc... much easier just to bake them.

Meanwhile, as my meatballs were browning I made the sauce with:

-Pureed tomatoes
-The other half of the onion, browned
-A bay leaf
-Allspice
-Sea salt
-Pepper
-Cinnamon

and let the whole thing reduce for 20 minutes.

I didn't add any wine because The Husband can't have any. He had tongue cancer earlier this year (don't worry, he got it taken care off and he's ok and no, he has never smoked so him getting it was just very bad luck), so his doctor told him no more wine. I know there are non-alcoholic wines out there, but I forgot to buy some. They only have them in white though, so if I ever make beef bourguignon for him again it might taste a wee bit different from what we're used to. I did add some feta directly to the sauce to add some more flavour.

After 25 minutes my tasty little meatballs were ready to come out and go for a swim in the sauce. Alas, I forgot to take a picture of my swimming meatballs.

My suggestion to make Greek Potatoes was vetoed by the husband as we had eaten potatoes earlier in the day so I just decided to boil some pasta. Not very Greek but at least it is in the spirit of a Mediterranean theme. Above is my finished plate with some more parsley and a chunk of feta. I actually bought some from the store even though I have a pot in the backyard as the spiders think it made a good spot to set up shop and since I am dreafully afraid of spiders I just don't feel like fighting with them over it.

This was a pretty tasty, pretty quick meal. It made a nice change from chicken and has left quite a few leftovers for the week. It was quite good with the spaghetti but next time I think I will try to go for a slightly more authentic side dish.