Food Adventure To Greece

You can take a culinary trip to Greece this weekend without ever leaving home. It is a very tasty trip too!

We came across this recipe and method for making chicken gyros at home and had to give it a try. Boy are we glad we did! It was fun and delicious all at the same time. Now some of you are asking “what is a gyros?”.

Answer: A gyro (pronounced YEE-row) is a Greek dish that is typically served on a pita. Made with stacked meat that has been cooked on a vertical rotisserie, “gyro” means “round” in Greek.

It might sound complicated but truly anyone can make these at home. Let’s get started!

What you’ll need:
2-3 lbs chicken
Marinade
Pita bread
tzatziki sauce
shredded lettuce
diced tomato
red onion
feta cheese
hummus (optional)

Use 2-3 pounds boneless and skinless chicken. Thighs are recommended because they tend to be more juicy but breasts will work very well too. Start by pounding the chicken pieces to about 1/2 inch thickness just so all the pieces are roughly even in thickness. This ensures they will cook evenly. If you don’t have a mallet use a rolling pin to pound the chicken between Saran wrap or parchment paper. If you are using beasts and they are large, cut them in half first and then pound them.

Make the marinade for your chicken:
1 cup whole Greek yogurt
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
3 cloves minced garlic (more if you like things garlicky)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1-2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander (also called cilantro)
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and stir together. Add in your pounded chicken pieces and allow to sit in the marinade for at least 1 hour but up to overnight will work. Refrigerate while marinating.

Now the fun part starts. Cut a large onion in half crosswise and put those halves into a baking dish. Place a skewer in each half of the onion.

Now stack your marinated chicken pieces one by one over the skewers and onto the onion

When all the pieces of chicken are stacked place them in a 375 degree oven. It will look something like this.

Roast the chicken in the oven for about 1 hour or until it looks browned on the edges.

Remove from the oven and allow the meat to rest for 5-10 minutes, then slice into the chicken stack from top to bottom which will create thin slices of chicken as you go.

You’ll end up with a dish of beautifully sliced chicken that looks like this.

Time to build your gyro. Lay out your warmed pita on a plate. We started by adding some red pepper hummus just to “guild the lily” so to speak. Pile that yummy chicken on your pita. You can add any or all of the traditional toppings, shredded lettuce, diced tomato, thinly sliced or diced red onion, cubed or crumbled feta cheese, we also added a bit of chopped fresh mint and of course tzatziki sauce. You can make your own tzatziki sauce (click for recipe) or use store bought but this is really an essential item to this dish. We like everything on our gyros.

And there it is. Thank you allrecipes.com for the great idea. All that’s left now is to put on some good Greek music, maybe sit outside in the warm summer air imagining yourself on the lovely Greek coastline, or watch a fun Greek film ( My big Fat Greek Wedding comes to mind) and fold up your gyro and enjoy!

OPA!!!!!