gyros, pita, slaw

I did not make this but I ate it.

It's pronounced with that ach sound that English doesn't have, like huck-ptewey spit, 

h-h-h-h-h-year-os.

And it is so good. The original fast-food, I think. 

This was ordered from Pizza and Grill on Lincoln St. through Grubhub and arrived in ten minutes. This is the 4th order to various places through Grubhub and they've all exceeded expectation. Under promise, over deliver, so far that's been the pattern. 

Beans with pork, rice with blueberries, gyros, eggs in butter, breakfast

Shhhh, es tarde. Todos estan duermo. 

Rice, gyros meatloaf, poached egg

This is my latest obsession; poached egg on everything. Poached egg on my bread, poached egg on handmade pasta, poached egg on popcorn kernel polenta, poached egg on meatloaf, poached egg on rice. Poached egg here, poached there, poached egg everywhere. Today's poached egg was particularly well-behaved.

Simmering water covering a few inches of a low fry pan. A few tablespoons vinegar into the water. An egg cracked into a ramekin. The egg gently dumped at once into the center of the pan. It held together so beautifully today, and that's not always the case.

This lamb/pork/beef mixture is too much like meatloaf. The last batch was too dry and insufficiently adhesive. It's a texture thing. The flavor right but the texture is wrong. My next attempt will be different. I intend to process the meats with a slicer and use meatloaf adhesion techniques, except with thinly sliced meat. If that appears to not work, then I'll process further using the bottom chopping blade, but careful not to over process. Then compress. No stacked slices, no grinding. Then see what happens.

Gravy whipped out in a separate pan, at this point rather boring.

* butter brought to nutty brown.

* equal part A/P flour cooked in the butter until browned

* S/P + garlic powder + prepared Vindaloo curry + cayenne pepper all in scant amount

* chicken broth whisked in and added in continuous stream until desired viscosity attained with corrections as it boils. I should have added wine, or at least saki or something, beer, anything, I mean, it's always right there.

Lamb meat loaf, ersatz gyros

The problem with the gyros here was texture and insufficient fat. That and the fact it wasn't roasted on a spit. Online instruction direct the cook towards more of a meat loaf which at first I resisted.

There sure was a lot of that lamb. Still have some left frozen. And the pork too. This is ground lamb, pork, and beef. All very low in fat, and that will not do. Added olive oil, and to retain whatever fat those meats contain and the oil supplemented, I added my own sourdough breadcrumbs, along with a few eggs and some milk. Plus Worcestershire sauce s/p. Instead of shrinking, the meat actually puffed up like a loaf of bread. It's utterly delicious, but it's hardly gyros. Therefore, it must be considered a meatloaf -- the best meatloaf I've ever tasted. No brag. Just fact.

The sauce here is catsup and Worcestershire and I'm not going to do that again. I still have my own tzatziki so there is no point in using this second-rate red menace.

This batch produced two of these meatloaves. It was totally worth the effort of grinding and mixing the meat. If I would have added diced onion, I'd sweat them first to cause them to shrink before being packed into the loaf.

Gyros patty, whole wheat bread, tomato

Last of of pork/lamb gyros patties :-(

But not last of the pork/lamb gyros :-)

Gyros experiment, pita, tzatziki

This is an experiment.

Pork and lamb. Pork not shown. The pork was frozen, partially thawed and sliced thinly just as the lamb was partially frozen then sliced thinly. Frozen to make slicing easier.

This experiment attempts to replicate how gyros is made on a vertical spit but without the actual spit. I read a page about authentic gyros and I was surprised to learn they use large chunks of meat and stack the irregular pieces on the spit. It's a mess starting out. The draining fat coalesces the layers which is shaved as it roasts so each piece is roasted thoroughly on the surface. This experiment heavily seasons very thin layers which are then carefully stacked in a bread pan that is compressed with another bread pan and weighted with a cast-iron frying pan inside the oven. It's like a meatloaf except more dense and less moist. Less child-friendly.

Tzatziki

Pita

The pita bread was baked between two pizza stones in an oven with heat set to high as it would go.

Conclusion: Gyros is dry, but this is too dry. It's delicious but it needs help. My next attempt I'll heed online instructions and go ahead and grind the meat. I didn't want to do that because it seemed too close to meatloaf. Now I know better. This didn't coalesce as well as I expected. It contains hardly any fat at all. The next time I'll incorporate some of my own breadcrumbs in order to retain more fat and moisture. Hopefully it'll stick together better too.

This is the first time I baked pita. It turned out too close to pretzel bread. It's delicious but it could not be used as a sandwich. Next time I'll just pan fry it like I usually do. It's faster and better.

Of course, you can buy pita and tzatziki pre-made, but come on, what's the fun in that?