Gyro Meat

Gyro meat on a white plate with lettuce, tomatoes and tzatziki sauce

Makes 10 Gyros

I really enjoy a gyro, lunch or dinner it really doesn't matter and Loraine puts up with me when I go into a gyro craze. However, the problem with the gyros, that are sold at fast food restaurants, is what they may be using as the beef and lamb portion of the product. I'm sure it is not the highest quality or antibiotic and hormone free meat that is available.

After a lot of experimentation I developed a recipe for gyro meat that I believe is as good if not better then what you get in a fast food restaurant and I can control the quality of the beef and lamb that I use.

When it comes to actually making the gyro, I don't make my own tzatziki sauce and I don't make the pita bread.

Note: I also use feta cheese on my finished gyro. I forgot to add it before taking the pictures.

Ingredients

Open faced gyro on a plate

Directions

  1. In a mixing bowl add the lamb, beef, onion, garlic, cumin. oregano, marjoram, rosemary, thyme pepper, and sea salt. Use your hands to blend all of the meat with the herbs. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and place in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
  2. Heat oven to 325° F
  3. Remove the seasoned meat from the refrigerator and place into a food processor. Grind the meat for about 90 seconds, scrape down the bowl and grind for another minute. The mixture should be a mushy consistency and somewhat tacky to the touch. (I had to split it into 2 batches, as my food processor isn't big enough to handle 2 lbs of meat. I processed one batch, then the second batch, mixed them together and processed them again to ensure they were thoroughly mixed together.)
  4. Place the processed meat mixture into a loaf pan. You must pack the meat into the loaf pan as tight as possible, ensuring that there are no air pockets.
  5. Bake the meat loaf in the center of the oven, for 50 minutes. You want an internal temperature of 165° F. Pour off and reserve all the accumulated juices.
  6. Place a weight (a brick covered with aluminum foil works well, but so will a couple of heavy cans of soup) on top of the gyro meat while it is resting.
  7. Allow to cool slightly before slicing thinly and serving.
  8. Note: When we make a batch of gyro meat, it makes a lot of gyros, hence we freeze some (slice it before freezing and wrap the slices separated by plastic wrap). We use 5 slices per gyro. The reserved juices are great when you want to warm up refrigerated or defrosted gyro slices. Heat the reserved juices in the microwave and place the meat in the juices to warm up.

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