I must try Gyros

[asudavew]

Originally Posted by stuart

Hey Dave,

I love gyros and now you have me salivating at the thought of making my own at home. Can you share your recipe for pitas? I did find one at About.com but I'd like to hear more about cooking them in the WFO if you can give advice.

Stuart

I just use the basic WFO pizza recipe.
flour, water, salt, yeast - no oil ( I do use half the salt though) So..
500 gr flour (hi protein)
300 gr water
3 gr yeast
10 gr salt

I let it raise once. (double)
Then I divide it into about 8-10 dough balls.

Now with pizza, I never use a rolling pin.
But with pitas, I do. I roll them out very thin with plenty of flour.
Probably an 1/8th of an inch thick is normal for me.

Then while my WFO is building heat for pizza, I cook them just inside the entry. I do, however, wait to cook them until the floor is pretty hot.
Then I just throw them on the floor. After 45 seconds or so, they will really poof up! Then I use some long tongs, and flip them over for another 30 seconds or so. -- Cooking time is really dependent on oven temps.
But it just takes a little practice. And dough is cheap to make, so.... if you burn a few no biggie.

I usually serve these for appetizers. I make 2 dipping sauces to go along side.

If you would like those recipes, I would be happy to post them.

BTW - I used to make the pitas on a stone in the oven. 500f.
Or a cast iron skillet also works on top of the stove.

Let me know how it turns out for you.

Dave

[arevalo53anos]

To bake sweet pizza (chocolate with strawberry or cinnamon and banana, as example) the first thing is to pre-bake the crust by 20 or 30 seconds.
If a little distracted, at those high temperatures, voilá, there was born a big pita <g>
The best pita, for me, is the one prepared on an iron skillet on the stove.
Please, take a look in YouTube, searching by pita bread and you could reach an Indian lady (do not remember the name right now) that had made an excellent video with the original recipe.

Luis

[Loren]

I am getting hungry just thinking about Gyros. I will have to try the Aloton Brown recipe and the pita.

Loren

[asudavew]

I tried the recipe on Sunday.
I wasn't too happy with it.
I'm gonna rework it in a few weekends.
I think it needed more salt, more pepper, and half the amount of marjoram. I would also add some garlic and oregano.

I think the texture was also wrong. It was more like meatloaf and less like gyros.

Although I do love the show "Good Eats", I have never been really happy with any of the recipes.

I think gyro meat may have to be treated more like a sausage concoction. I'm thinking a few days of curing might do the trick.
I'll let everyone know what I come up with. Maybe some Morton's Tender Quick Cure, will be... well... ........ I guess it will be ........the cure!

sorry bout that

dave

[Loren]

I will go ahead and try the recipe and make a few changes. The rotisserie would cook the lamb much better, however it would be difficult to have the mixture stay intact on the skewer. It is hard to beat the vertical rotisserie method that the gyro places use, slowly turning in front of the heat and self basting. The meat is also sliced thin and when cut off the skewer it has a much different consistency than ground lamb.

Dave, I must agree with you about Alton Brown. His science is great but a lot of his recipes are not so good once you try them. although I have kept a couple that have worked out very well. I really like the way he explains the science part of cooking. I watched his show last night on baking bread and he used a large flower pot bottom instead of a pizza stone in the oven. It looked like there was not much crust on the bottom of the bread, too thin of a piece of pottery if you ask me... I still really like the show though.

Loren

[jeff]

Thanks for the recipe link fellers. "Gyros" are new to me. Sounds magic.
Btw, my spit is supported at the back wall by ss rod loosely built into brickwork. Front support is hook and chain, also built in. Originally I'd made up a mini tripod, but it was too clumsy, so pulled the arch down and re-built it.

Sorry to read of weather woes over there. Been a bit rough in parts of Oz also.
Jeff.

[Acoma]

Dave and Loren, it's me Alton Brown. I want you to know my food is not my specialty. I actually sell the idea of bad eats, but the director of my show keeps telling everyone it is "Good Eats"

[Bacterium]

Gyros is great.....my experiences to add......in Australia it goes by a number of different names depending on what state you are from. Hence it can also be called a "Yiros" or a "Souvlaki"
OR
in true Aussie terms some call it the "lamb sandwich". Either way, over here its the Greek take-away shops who usually get it right. For those that don't know - Generally it is a flat pita rolled up with meat (Lamb, Beef or Chicken), lettuce, tomato and onion + "garlic sauce" or tzaziki inside - some add tabouli instead of salad - some like it with BBQ sauce.

Loren makes a good point - it seems those who cook the meat on the vertical spit get it tasting the best. I have done 3-4 vertical spits for parties by borrowing a mates spit. The trick with the meat is to marinate it for a number of days (I do it for 3.) before, in the fridge of course. I usually buy the marinate in a dry powder form from one of the local wholesale meat/food suppliers.

Why is the meat so tender (and the marinate powder doesn't dry it out). Not 100% sure but as the meat is stacked up on one another the juices run down through the whole vertical column of meat - as it cooks. During cooking you keep carving off the outer layer, so the meat doesn't overcook and the juices keep coming.

Sorry I can't really add who we do this in a brick oven yet but a Yiros (as its called in South Oz) is very tasty.

[Inishta]

Hi all……………I don’t wish to start an international incident but the gyros or yiros you refer to are actually a Greek version of Doner Kebabs which were created by the Turkish. The name doner comes from donmek ‘to turn’ in Turkish. It is usually cooked by rotating tightly packed chicken breast or lamb vertically in front of gas burners and shaved off with a knife, almost like a sword, as it cooks. There is often a piece of fat at the top of the cylinder of meat that drips onto the exposed area and moistens the kebab as it cooks. The meat is served either in pide, slightly leavened bread, or rolled in a type of lavash which we call ‘Durum’ There are a lot of cafes with windows on to the street where you can pick up a kebab to eat as you walk along. Most of the kebabs are purchased from specialist meat factories so finding out the spice recipes is very difficult. I shall make some enquiries.

The nature of the cooking makes it almost impossible to duplicate in a WFO as the meat is shaved off as it cooks, exposing fresh meat to the flame. One of my favourite restaurants uses the original horizontal cooking methods for lamb that may be adapted for a barbeque. It would probably work quite well on a rotisserie mounted inside the oven. That would take a bit of work to retro-fit one but is something for an oven builder might think about incorporating. Photos next time I go to town. In the meantime you can get a wealth of info here…………..

Döner kebab - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[jeff]

Inishta,
Too late: the Red Button has been pressed - missiles launched! hahaha.
Thanks for clarification on Gyros.
I had contact [ESL sessions] with a young Turk a while back.He worked in the local doner kebab shop, and how he endured Ramadan in such a magnificently sensous environment is beyond my agnostic imagination.
I would never have considered doner kebabs from a wfo - until you mentioned it. (Next oven, [two years or so ]. Hmm. And the feller who mentioned a speedo cable! Now there's a thought!)
Inishta, I tried to contact you recently. As a Luddite, even familiar forums pose their challenges...
Mate/[Matess]. So much for ESL. I need IEL.
Stay safe eh,
Jeff.