Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Gyro Burgers

As you may have noticed, I enjoy frequenting All Recipes to find new things to cook. The other day I stumbled across one of their columns called Single Servings. Basically the columnist picks out a number of recipes from the site, compiles the shopping list,and then gives you prep and cook instructions to give you a number of single-portion meals each month. I haven't actually gone through her entire recommended month of meals yet as I'm finding that I'm surprisingly picky about food. I like variety - but I like MY variety. It's great inspiration nonetheless. I forgot that all recipes lets you change the serving size of recipes (it scales the ingredients for you!) and that you can add the ingredients for any recipe you want to one compiled shopping list.
Anyway. Back to the point of this post. The August column included a recipe for Gyro style burgers that looked delicious - so I thought I'd try it out. Basically you take ground beef and lamb and mix in some spices and then grill the patty like a hamburger. My local grocery store didn't have any lamb and I didn't feel like hunting down specialty butcher so I just used all beef.

I grilled one patty on the George Foreman and froze the other three for a dinner at a later date. I sliced the burger into thin slices and put them inside of a wheat pita pocket. (Not all that impressed with the brand of pita pocket I got - I'll have to try another). I topped it off with some Tzatziki Sauce I had made earlier (using a cucumber from CSA. yay CSA!). If I had lettuce I would've added that - it was really good without it though.
I think the Indian Style Okra I posted about a few weeks ago would've made a great side dish to this. I'll have to try that combo next time. You have the cumin and the coriander in both things - but I think the taste is still different enough that it shares a common thread without being mono-flavor.

5 comments:

  1. My hometown has a Greek restaurant owned and operated (read: they are also the cooks) by bona fide Greek people. They are first-generation U. S. citizens. Anyhow, the food there is superb, and the gyro was my usual order. Unfortunately, I ordered mine with french fries. Cumin ranks in my personal top three spices, along with basil and cinnamon. Some of these might be herbs; I can't be bothered presently to do the research. Also, I cannot provide the exact rankings. I include obscene amounts of cumin in my chili. And cinnamon is the secret ingredient in my spaghetti sauce (borrowed from the Konstantinidis family who owns the restaurant I referenced earlier).

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  2. Wow. All recipes sounds like a great site! That's awesome that they scale down recipes for you. Thanks for sharing that =)

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  3. Those look really good Nicole! I love hearing you talk about cooking and such! :)

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  4. Joe - cumin is def among my top spices - I think I already have a blog post scheduled that says that actually. haha. I've never actually had authentic gyros.

    hollie - hope you find allrecipes useful too!


    Heather - I'm glad someone likes to hear me talk about ocoking or I wouldn't have any readers! lol

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  5. Yummy those look awesome! I'm going to have to do some research :)

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