It’s all in the making: one of the most famous Greek foods can created unexpected, yet delicious dishes. Just use your imagination and excellent quality Greek gyros.
Crispy, juicy spit-roasted meat, wrapped in pita bread, and topped with delicious tzatziki. Mouthwatering even when it’s just been described, let alone served and tasted. Gyros is not to be confused, though, with doner kebab, a similar dish but usually made of lamb meat, and hailing from Turkey – an extremely popular street food choice during the last decades. Gyros is made mostly from pork and sometimes from chicken, whereas doner kebab consists of lamb or beef and occasionally of chicken, fish or unusual meats.
Greek gyros is wrapped into a grilled piece of classic pita, while the doner uses different kinds of flatbread and looks more like a sandwich. Their main difference is, however, the fact that doner has barely evolved and is still considered a kind of fast, street food, even as gyros –not least because of the vision of Greek meat production companies– has managed to combine the best of two worlds: it can be a cheap food with everyman appeal, as well as a gourmet dish, a staple in the menu of many upscale restaurants all over the world
Keep scroling to find out the truth of the phrase! We present two delicious, almost gourmet gyros recipes that do verify the fact that gyros can be an ingredient for premium dishes and a highly acclaimed cuisine style.
Greek gyros recipe A | Chicken gyros crepe with fresh vegetables
Ingredients:
- 250gr chicken gyros
- 4 crepes
- 1⁄2 cup of Kasseri cheese, grated
- 1 lettuce
- 1⁄2 cucumber
- 2 red bell peppers
- 2 spring onions
- 1 carrot
- 250gr Greek yogurt
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp chopped dill
- Sweet paprika, kosher salt
Directions:
Cut all vegetables into thin slices. In a deep salad bowl, mix together the lettuce, cucumber, peppers, carrot, spring onions, and the Kasseri cheese.
In another bowl, mix the yogurt with the olive oil, dill, paprika, and some salt (to taste) to form a thick sauce.
Place the crepe into a plate, add the salad, the yogurt sauce, and, finally, the chicken gyros. Fold and serve.
Greek gyros recipe B | Gyros Salad with orange sauce and raisins
Ingredients:
- 2 sprigs fresh arugula, roughly chopped
- Red cabbage, roughly chopped
- Sultana raisins
- Pine nuts
- 50gr Parmesan, thinly sliced
- 4 tomatoes, sliced
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Orange sauce
- Apple vinegar
- Mustard
- Salt and pepper
For the orange sauce
- 3/4 cup orange juice
- 2 tbsp orange squash
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp cornflour
- 1/4 tsp lemon juice
Directions:
Put the mustard in a blender and gently pour the olive oil while blending.
Prepare the orange sauce: Combine the orange juice, orange squash, sugar and cornflour in a broad non-stick pan, mix well and cook on a medium flame for 6 to 7 minutes, while stirring continuously. Allow the sauce to cool completely. Once cooled add the lemon juice and mix gently.
In a bowl, mix the orange sauce and the apple vinegar together with the arugula, cabbage, raisins, pine nuts, Parmesan, and the sliced tomatoes. Add salt and pepper. Drizzle with the mustard, and serve.
(Both recipes are photos used are from Ambrosia Magazine’s archive.)
