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I love gyros. A pita stuffed with the heavily seasoned, mildly spicy lamb/beef mixture topped with a creamy, aromatic tzatziki sauce is Nirvana to my palate.
Shaved steak gyros topped with tzatziki sauce.
To me, the only downside is that the process is time-consuming and usually requires that I start one day ahead of time. I have to find lamb, grind it with beef and seasonings, and then let it rest for a day before cooking.
Quick and Easy Solution
This is another case where the Bertolino's Certified Angus Beef® Brand shaved steak from Food City comes in handy. With a hefty dose of Greek seasoning, it tastes pretty darn close to my usual gyros with hardly any work, and I can have them ready within 30 minutes. So far, I have used this shaved steak in fajitas, stir-fry, cheesesteak sandwiches, and now gyros.
Cooking shaved steak gyros in an 80-year-old Griswold skillet on a large Big Green Egg. You can see a Kick Ash Basket down there in the glowing coals; that one is 6 years old and holding up well.
Stovetop, Skillet, or Griddle
To be honest, I don't think doing this on the grill adds anything to the recipe; it's just a matter of preference. This recipe works well in a skillet on the grill, on the stovetop, or using a flattop griddle.
Leftover Gyro Salad
If you have leftovers, this makes for an excellent salad as well. Just put the meat, seasoned onion, and tomato on a bed of mixed greens. Then you can thin the tzatziki with some buttermilk, lemon juice, or stock to make the salad dressing.
1/2 yellow onion, peeled, sliced, and seasoned with 1/4 teaspoon Greek Seasoning
1 small heirloom tomato, sliced and seasoned with salt
2 pita bread
1 recipe Tzatziki (recipe below)
Instructions
Preheat grill set up for direct heat to 400°f, or you can use a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat on a stovetop. Either way, preheat your skillet for 5 minutes prior to cooking.
Heat the pita bread. Place each pita in the dry skillet until heated through, about 30 seconds per side. Remove and keep warm. A tortilla warmer is superb for that, or you can wrap them in a towel.
Cook the meat. Add the cooking oil to the skillet and wipe to coat the cooking surface. Add the shaved steak in small batches around the skillet until it's full. (Just dumping the entire pound in one spot will drop the skillet temperature.) Season with all of the Greek seasonings and cook the steak, frequently stirring, until the steak is cooked through and all of the pink is gone. Remove from heat.
Assemble the gyros. Cut the pitas in half and stuff each pita half with seasoned onion, 2-3 slices of tomato, and a fourth of the shaved steak. Top with a healthy portion of tzatziki and enjoy.
Yield: 4 gyros
Prep Time: 00 hrs. 30 mins.
Cook time: 00 hrs. 10 mins.
Total time: 40 mins.
Tags: skillet, griddle
We like a thick tzatziki sauce, so it's very important to squeeze out the cucumber's excess moisture before adding it to the yogurt.
I like our tzatziki sauce thick, in case you couldn't tell. The trick is to squeeze all of the water out of the cucumber paste first.
Tzatziki Sauce
www.nibblemethis.com
Published 01/18/2021
Ingredients
1 1/2 cup Fage Greek Yogurt 5% fat
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh dill weed
1/4 teaspoon finely ground white pepper
1 cucumber
pinch of salt to taste
Instructions
Make cucumber paste. Peel, seed, and dice the cucumber, Process it in a small food processor or blender until a paste-like consistency. Place the paste in a clean blue shop towel or tea towel and squeeze out all of the excess moisture.
Place the cucumber paste, yogurt, garlic, dill, white pepper in a medium-sized bowl and whisk together. Taste and add a pinch or two of salt to adjust seasoning.
Yield: 1 1/2 cups
Prep Time: 00 hrs. 10 mins.
Cook time: 00 hrs. 10 mins.
Total time: 20 mins.
Tags: condiment
This recipe comes from "my little black book," which is actually gray. You should keep a cooking journal if you're serious about becoming the best cook that you can be. I got this one from Certified Angus Beef® Brand.
I draft or plan my recipe on a whiteboard in the kitchen and then write it down as cooked and include what I'd do differently. I'll update it when I recook it. Finally, I'll type it up in an online application so I can access it from wherever. For this specific recipe, we made it three times in the past 2 weeks.
Getting the water out of the cucumber pulp is essential to keep your tzatziki from being too watery. I usually get 3 to 4 tablespoons of moisture from a single cuke. It just now occurs to me that I should keep that liquid to make cucumber ice water. Yassin's Falafel serves that water as an option for their gyros.
I should look like this after you're done squeezing out the liquid.
Alexis and I love love love tzatziki sauce, so we aren't going to waste any. We eat any leftover tzatziki with oven-roasted pita chips.
I like to season the onion with about 1/4 teaspoon of the Greek Seasoning and toss it to coat. I season the tomato with kosher salt.
I use a slight variation of The Daring Gourmet's Greek Seasoning recipe. If you made something commercially made, such as; Cavender's Greek Seasoning, I would cut the amount to 1 tablespoon and then season to taste because it is considerably more salty than the homemade recipe.
Toasting the pita bread in a dry Griswold #8 skillet over hot lump charcoal in the Big Green Egg. Then I just pop it in a tortilla warmer to keep warm while I finish cooking.
The shaved steak comes from Bertolino Foods, and it features Certified Angus Beef® Brand. I get mine at Food City. It's just bits of shaved steak, an upgrade from ground beef. I like having it on hand for quick weeknight meals because it cooks in 3 to 5 minutes, and I can use it in a wide variety of recipes.
I've cooked these on the Big Green Egg twice and once on the stovetop so far. Here, I'm using a large Big Green Egg in a BGE Modular Nest (table). It was a basic set up - Kick Ash Basket full of Tennessee hardwood lump charcoal and a grate set up for direct heat. I left both vents fully open until it hit 300°f and then I closed them down to slide up to about 400°f. Then I put the skillet on for about 5 minutes before I started to cook.
Notice that the meat is first put into the skillet in small batches (spread out) instead of just dumped in there from the package. This way, the skillet doesn't lose as much heat. Also, I'm a cast-iron geek, and I am proud of how shiny my Griswold #8 restoration turned out earlier this year.
This cook is basically a stir-fry. It only takes about 2-3 minutes, and I frequently, almost constantly, stir the meat around. I just keep looking for the least done pieces and flip them over.
Once there is no pink left, you are done. Don't forget, the cast-iron skillet will stay hot and keep cooking your food even after it comes out of the grill.
Look at that skillet shine!
This typically takes right at 3 minutes to finish the meat, per my handy dandy Thermoworks TimeStick. (Affiliate link)
It is physically impossible for me to walk by this pile without sneaking a piece...for quality control purposes, of course.
Here's a batch we did about 2 weeks ago, just gyro steak, onion, and tzatziki.
This is the batch we made last night for dinner. Food City has been having heirloom tomato, so I had to put some of that in there.
I served this batch with some spring mix for a reason. When I was done, I picked up the bits and pieces that fell on the plate and put them on top of the spring mix for a salad. It's like eating tacos over a burrito wrapper.
