and I mean real good. Greek gyros and Turkish koftes are some of our favorite meat dishes, and I wanted to make something like them at home. I looked up several recipes, and adapted it to what I had on hand and what I thought would taste good. A mix of ground meat, using beef, lamb and pork is ideal, but I didn’t have any ground beef, but will use some next time. I used one pound of ground pork and one pound of ground lamb. Add bread crumbs, one teaspoon sea salt per pound of meat and mix well.

In the food processor using the blade, process a head or two of garlic, depending on the size. I had fresh rosemary and lemon thyme in the garden, a big handful of each, and processed them fine along with whole peppercorns and whole coriander seed (a lot.)

Add cayenne pepper and mix herbs and spices into the meat. I know that the flavor of the meat mixture would have been good if cooked at this point, but texture is what you are after, and a moistness that can only be attained by grinding the meat finer to incorporate the fat. Process the meat mixture in batches in a food processor with the blade attachment and make sure to set it to the dough setting on your Cuisinart. The meat on the left is the initial mixing, and on the right after being processed again.

The best thing about gyros or koftjes is that they are thin and roasted. I saw recipes that said to make it into a meatloaf, then slice thin on a diagonal and then broil those slices until crispy. Too much trouble and I felt that it would dry out, and juicy was what I was after. I took waxed paper and lined a baking sheet (that my dear sister gave me 🙂 that has sides to it and rolled out the meat mixture until it was about 1/4 to 1/3 of an inch thick. Place another sheet of wax paper on top of the meat mixture and roll it out under that, so it does not stick to the rolling pin.

Ok, full disclosure. At lunch we had an argument. I thought it was about 1/4 of an inch thick. Our daughter thought is was a bit thicker, but not as thick as 1/3 of an inch and my dh said it was less than a third but was probably closer to 3/8 of an inch, which he does things like that to mess mathematically with our dh, to keep her on her toes. It was lively. 🙂

I used a small rolling pin to get it as thin as possible and put it in a 350 degree oven, now I can’t remember how long, but I think it took about 15 min. You want it to brown and cook nicely all over.

It will shrink and lose some juices and fat, and so I let it rest for about 15 min. which allowed for all the juices to be reincorporated. I must say it was good, real good. I served it with a cabbage salad with aoli… and it certainly would go with many things. When we were finished with lunch I cut it into squares and put it in the refrigerator.

Next day. “Please make sure that you use the gyros for lunch so I can show the guys how great they are, since I have been talking about them all morning as we are building the fence.”

Oops. I must admit, I did enjoy a couple of squares later in the morning for breakfast and found that our dd had been snacking on them for breakfast and for an early lunch. I did manage for the guys to all have some, but we all were wishing for more.

Coriander seed, a must, everything else can give or take. I was hoping to have these squares to put on sandwiches, but that will have to wait to the next batch.