On Cooking: The Gyro
My take on the gyro
I first tried a gyro at Steve’s Kitchen, a Greek breakfast and lunch place in Allston, MA. It must have been summer of 1986, after college graduation when I was living in Allston with some friends. [Steve’s kept on for decades, apparently closing around 2022.] One of my friends, Cliff, was a friend from high school and had already been living there for a while and knew the spots. He championed it as the place to go in our neighborhood for breakfast. You could walk in less than 10 minutes from our place, so no parking nightmares. I think the 3 egg, bacon, hashbrowns, toast and coffee special was $3.99 or something. Cheap. And good, except for the coffee. We’d hit it up on weekends, usually pretty hungover, and we’d chow down. At some point, Cliff ordered a gyro. He hyped it so I went along.
Life changed.
Something about the rotating spit with built in broiler, the seasoned lamb and ?, the tzatziki. I loved it from the first bite.
Method:
Since I don’t have the rotating spit, I basically make a meatloaf seasoned as I would season the lamb on a spit. It works fine, without the need to cook a whole spit worth of meat. Not practical at home for sure. I usually broil thin slices of the gyro “meatloaf” then assemble. Pan frying works well too.
For today, I made DIY pita bread. Quite easy, though it is a process. Today I used a recipe from The Mediterranian Dish. It took about 90 minutes, though a lot of that is resting time. I went with a mix of 50% Whole Wheat and 50% King Arthur AP flour.
For the gyro “meatloaf” I used this “Traditional Gyro Meat” recipe from AllRecipes.com. I am a bit skeptical how “traditional” it is since I believe the traditional version is dry-rubbed and spit roasted. But it works fine and tastes great. I doubled to a whole onion vs 1/2. I also used sage instead of rosemary and added some roasted and ground celery and fennel seeds to add some zip.
I assembled as follows:
Spread hummus on 1/2 the pita
Spread tzatziki on the other 1/2 of the pita
Put sliced gyro “meatloaf” on one side, I chose the hummus side
Chop ripe tomatos on top of the meat
Chopped shallots
A bit of green stuff, today some fancy lettuce I got at the farmers market. Damned if the farmer couldn’t remember what it was. Tasty and sweet, not bitter.
Crumble your feta over the top
Squeeze and eat
I highly recommend making the pita yourself. The “Joseph’s” brand at my market is total crap, falls apart and is made with super crap ingredients. No other local options really except some organic stuff at the health food store—suitable for use as a doorstop or frisbie.
I do sometimes make the tzatziki myself. It’s a good sauce to know and can be used in many ways besides gyros. I couldn’t get yogurt at Farmers’ Market today, so I bought the ready-made Cedars brand which is ok.
Buy the best feta you can afford, they vary a lot. Even cheap feta is now expensive, sigh.
Hummus is optional. I only started adding it when I came across some recipes that included it. It really does add something.
Lettuce is up to you to experiment with. I’ve used whatever I have around, often arugula [not technically lettuce,] lambs quarter, spinach. Here is the amazing lettuce from today. I’ve honestly not seen this before. If you know what it is, please let me know:
That’s it. My DIY Gyro.
Short post today.
I thought it was worth a quick method post vs. a note. I figure some folks must be getting tired of seeing what I eat everyday in the notes feed. Oh wait, now I’m going to restack it anyway after I send it. Duh. I highly recommend making your own gyros. And your own pita bread.
Thanks for reading, please like or comment if you enjoyed this post.
As always, thank you for reading my food pandering and my wanderings away from supermarkets and into local and wild food worlds. It inspires me that people follow me and subscribe. Know that I am honored by your attention and feel blessed too.
Start with whole foods and cook them yourself. Or sucker your children into cooking like my mom did. Eat slowly, together mostly and deeply enjoy your food—no matter what the rest of the world thinks. Food is life.
Good cooking, good eating, good loving - K. Paul
Happy cooking - Jacques Pépin
When you say spit roasted would you mean like the large rotating slabs of meat (strips layered on other strips and spiked next to a heat source) like the shawarma?
Always wondered if I could do it at home on a smaller scale 🤔
Indeed, feta now costs like gold
This is awesome! A proper Gyro!! Way to improvise for home kitchen too.
Btw- I think those Lettuces are Red Oak leaves. Good stuff!