My friend Brittany over at B-ing paleo fabulous and I had a friendly little cook off for a going away party. Two of our friends are moving to Georgia to open up their own crossfit gym and they had a surprise going away party. Brian had said he wanted gyros. I thought it would be fun to bring these to surprise them and see our two takes on the gyro, Brittany agreed.
These are my gyros that I brought to the party. Brittany’s gyros are here on her site. We got to the party late so I didn’t get to try hers but they looked really good. She went with the authentic lamb meat. I used a combination of beef and pork. She did a pulled meat and I tried to go with ground meat on a rotisserie.
Brian was of course very diplomatic and said they were both great. So we may never know who won. It was; however, fun, challenging, and delicious. I think we might have to pair up again to try something else exciting Brittany makes such good food that she’s a good motivator.
Gyros
2.5 lbs of beef
.5 lbs of pork jowl (pretty much bacon)
1 onion finely processed and drained
1 tbsp of fresh thyme
1tbsp of fresh rosemary
1 tbsp of parsley
1 tsp of marjoram
1 tsp of red pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp black pepper
7 cloves of garlic
juice of one lemon
Tzaziki Sauce
1 can of coconut milk
¼ red onion
1 tbsp fresh mint
4 garlic cloves
juice of one lemon
To me authentic gyros are the kind that are ground and cooked over an open rotisserie. Then when you want some you shave off some meat and add fresh veggies, feta, and tzaziki sauce. So that is what I tried to do here. After some research into how to achieve this method I set forth. I blended all the ingredients until it was a paste.
Then I tightly wrapped the meat in plastic wrap.
It was kind of like twisting a candy wrapper to get it tight.
Then I placed a heavy cook book on top of that.
The point of all this is to make a tight compact loaf that you can then skewer and rotisserie. I refrigerated my meat loaf over night to let the flavors meld and to squish the daylights out of it. The next morning I skewered the meat and placed it in my rotisserie.
T had very pessimistic views about the meat staying on the skewer. I had my fingers crossed. I mean it worked for Alton Brown! But, T was correct. It fell off after a few minutes of cooking.
So I left it on the tray and let it cook for 1.5 hours at 350 until cooked through.
When it was done I sliced it thin. Traditionally you’d eat this with pita bread. I went with romaine lettuce to keep it primal.
To assemble you take a leaf of romaine, some slices of meat, red onion sliced thin, tomatoes, cucumbers, feta crumbles (omit if you are paleo), and the tzaziki sauce (traditionally a yogurt based dressing but again, I wanted to keep it as paleo as possible). Here is Brian enjoying his second gyro of the day. I was really happy with the final product. I think it had all the flavors that I was looking for in a gyro. Next time I might try to just cook it in a loaf pan.
Brian and Sabrina we will miss you and wish you the best of luck in Savannah!
leetsstreet 