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Family Tested and Approved: Lee’s Gyro Meat
If you are a consumer of TikTok, you may have come across a viral recipe for doner kebab meat.
So what is doner kebab? Traditionally, it’s a seasoned meat cooked on a vertical, rotating skewer that is sliced thinly and served with flatbread and various sauces and vegetables. It is, essentially, the Turkish version of gyros or shawarma.
The TikTok videos are all variations of a recipe by a user called Meze Mike. The seasoned meat is rolled between two sheets of parchment paper, which is then rolled and cooked. It mimics the thinly shaved slices of doner or gyro meat. And of course, both of my spawn have sent me videos of this, asking me to make it when everyone is home over Thanksgiving.
I think they want me to make this (this is unconfirmed, but I’m fairly sure I’ve got it correct) because I have long made gyro meat, and they love it. My recipe is loosely based on Alton Brown’s recipe; over the years, I’ve fiddled with it enough that it’s now mine. My kidlets both like it, which is a HUGE win here because I swear they enjoy driving me crazy by not liking what foods the other enjoys. (I mean, one only likes raw carrots, while the other only likes cooked carrots. Honestly, kids. Knock it off!)
So before I try Meze Mike’s doner kebab recipes, I decided to make my gyro recipe and share it with you. I hope you like it as much as we do!
Lee’s Easy Gyro Meat
You can cook this in the oven or, if you’re feeling fancy and have a rotisserie attachment for your grill, on a rotisserie on your grill. I am decidedly NOT fancy, so I use my oven.
Ingredients
1 pound lean ground beef
1 pound ground lamb
1 small onion, halved and peeled
2 to 5 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon dried marjoram or oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons kosher salt
lots of freshly ground pepper
Directions
Using a box grater over a bowl, grate the onion. Pour the grated onion into a (clean) kitchen towel. Gather up the corners of the towel and twist the onion up in the towel. Squeeze out the juice. Place the grated onion into the bowl of a food processor.
Add the remaining ingredients to the food processor and process until you have a fine paste. You will need to scrape down the sides of the bowl several times.
To cook your gyro meat in the oven, preheat said oven to 325°. Scrape the gyro meat into a loaf pan. Slam the loaf pan onto your countertop several time to make sure that all the meat is settled into the corners of the pan and that any air bubbles are removed. You want this to be a solid loaf of meat.
Place the loaf pan in a baking dish and fill said dish with hot water halfway up the side of the loaf pan. Bake the gyro loaf for about an hour, until the internal temperature reaches 165°. Remove the pan from the oven.
Drain the fat from the gyro loaf and discard. Now this is important, so DO NOT skip this step. (I have, and my children have told me never to skip it again.) Place the loaf pan on a wire rack and place a foil-wrapped brick (yes, you read that correctly) directly onto the top of the gyro loaf. Allow the loaf to sit for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the internal temperature has reached 175°. This allows the loaf to come together so that you can slice it thinly.
Once the meat has rested under its foil-wrapped brick (and please, be sure to wrap your brick in foil – safety first!), turn the loaf out onto the wire rack and allow to cool for another 10 minutes. Then slice and serve on pitas, over a salad, or with rice pilaf. It’s delicious with my tzatziki recipe, which you will find below. The gyro meat keeps in the fridge for about 5 days. Serves 6 with leftovers.
Lee’s Tzatziki
Ingredients
1 English or hothouse cucumber, peeled
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon sugar
16 ounces plain Greek yogurt (you can use the low fat stuff, but please, for all that’s holy, do not use the fat free stuff)
4 to 6 cloves garlic, minced or grated
Pinch kosher salt
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dried mint or dried dill
Directions
Grate the cucumber into a colander and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon kosher salt and ½ teaspoon sugar. Allow to sit for 10 minutes while you assemble the rest of the tzatziki.
In a bowl, combine the garlic, kosher salt, dried mint or dill, vinegar, and olive oil and whisk to combine. Add the Greek yogurt and stir to combine.
Once you’ve got the yogurt mixture combined, rinse the cucumber in lots of cold water. Like you did with the grated onion in the gyro recipe, place the grated cucumber onto a clean kitchen towel, gather up the edges and twist the towel to squeeze the liquid out of the cucumber. Once the cucumber is squeezed, tip it into the yogurt mixture and stir to combine. Allow the tzatziki to sit for at least an hour to allow the flavors to get happy.
Ideas for Serving
Gyro sandwich: spread some tzatziki onto a warmed pita, lavash, naan, or other flatbread, pile up some sliced gyro meat, and garnish with thinly sliced red onion, sliced tomatoes, and shredded lettuce
Gyro salad: in a bowl, combine chopped romaine and leaf lettuce with sliced cherry tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, thinly sliced red onions, sliced Kalamata olives, pickled banana pepper or pepperoncini slices, crumbled feta cheese and sliced gyro meat tossed in a “Greek dressing” (juice of 1 lemon, olive oil, dried oregano, dried dill, 1 clove minced garlic, kosher salt and freshly ground pepper)
Gyro bowl: rice pilaf (rice that’s been cooked in chicken broth with aromatics), sliced red onions and tomatoes that have been tossed with ground sumac, a dollop of hummus or baba ganoush, a dollop of tzatziki (see above), sliced Kalamata olives, crumbled feta, sliced gyro meat, and served with warmed flatbread
Gyro scrambled eggs: this is my younger daughter’s recipe – 2 eggs, whisked with a pinch of salt and a pinch of granulated garlic, 4 or 5 gyro slices, and feta cheese all scrambled over medium heat in a nonstick pan
