Recipe Time: Lahmajun-Style Gyros

A dumb little thing I've been working on.

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Part 2 Of The “Just Smash It On The Grill” Series

I’m probably going to offend a lot of cultures with this one, so I apologize in advance. I grant that nothing about this is “authentic” to any one cuisine, and I stole liberally from three or four. Anyway, I think the idea started with this video, which I came across on Instagram:

thegoldenbalance

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This dude has almost three million followers. His presence is kind of grating in that typically Gen Z way (basically true of any account with over 100,000 followers), but most of his food looks pretty good. These little sandwich deals, which he says are arayes, looked pretty good. I’ve made a ton of variations on kebabs (cevapcici were an obsession for a while after a trip to Sarajevo) and pita sandwiches, but I’d never stuffed the kebab meat into the pita before I grilled it before. That seemed like a nice time saver. And as the internet’s foremost ravioli scientist, the concept appealed to me.

The trouble I found when I actually tried to make it was that it took too long for the meat inside to cook. So that when it finally did, the pita was burnt to a crips or hammered stale (probably some seasoned araye makers have a solution for this). Not to mention, the pita fully surrounding the filling meant you couldn’t get much char on the meat (Maillard wept). Also, there was no room for fixins. That’s no good!

Still, I liked the idea. (And his little trick for removing the water from the onions, which I promptly stole). I just thought I could customize it a little.

My inspiration came from lahmajoun, which are sort of like little Armenian pizzas with ground meat on thin dough that are baked. I’m mostly too lazy to make them from scratch, but there are a lot of places here in Fresno where I can buy them in packs of 10 and freeze them, then bake for an easy lunch. I found myself craving them a lot more often after I realized I could add fixins to the top and fold it up to eat like a taco. (Taco-ing up an Armenian thing being, again, very Fresno of me).

And so with that in mind, I came up with this recipe, which is sort of like a mash-up of a lahmajoun, a gyro, a taco, and a kebab. Pita, heavily-seasoned ground meat, and fixins, that I could cook up on the stove without making dough or pre-heating an oven.

I thought they turned out pretty good! If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be sharing.

FOR THE MEAT

(Every culture that was ever a part of the Ottoman Empire basically has their own version of seasoned ground meat, and I fudged a few for this one.)

(should feed 4-6)

Ingredients:

1 pound 80-20 ground beef
1 pound ground lamb, veal, or pork.
2 eggs
2 smallish onions, grated and drained (note below)
3 garlic cloves, grated or smashed and minced
2 tablespoons spice blend (I’ve used pre-mixed 7-spice, but I also like a blend of equal parts cumin, coriander, cinammon, black pepper, and paprika).
2 tablespoons harissa paste (you can probably sub tomato paste+something spicy here)
About 2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda*

*Yes, that’s baking POWDER in the picture. I saw a couple recipes that used baking powder instead of baking soda, and I was intrigued by it. They both raise the ph and keep the meat juicier and make it brown faster, but baking powder makes the meat puff up a bit. Which is great for meatballs, but not as great for a flat-meat recipe like this. I’d go with baking soda for this. Just don’t overdo it, it starts to make the meat taste soapy if you use too much.

Onion Note

This is similar to the way Zach Johnston taught me to make hash browns. You grate the potatoes, rinse them, then put them in a dish towel and wring it out to remove the water. We’re doing the same thing with onions here, minus the rinsing.

First, you take a box grater and grate your onion (yes, you will probably cry) onto the dish towel.

Next, you gather up the corners and twist it up nice and tight to squeeze out all the excess moisture.

Voila.

Now you can add all that onion to your meat without it getting all wet and sloppy (like your mother).

Yes, you can mix these with your hands (I’d suggest coating your hands with water or oil first) or you can be a Little Lord Fauntleroy like me and use a stand mixer.

Once my ground meat is all mixed together, whether it’s for kebabs, meatballs, burgers, or ravioli filling, I always take about tablespoon worth and cook it up in a pan to test it for seasoning. That way if it’s too bland I can add a little more salt.

FIXINS

The Sauce

Gyros usually come with tzatziki, which is made with yogurt, lemon, cucumber, garlic, dill… (it’s my closely-held theory that every culture has their version of ranch dressing even if it’s not called “ranch dressing”), but have you ever made toum? It’s a fluffy garlic sauce that normally comes with Lebanese or Armenian chicken dishes, but I love it on beef-based kebabs too. Here’s a great video on how to make it (I do not know why it won’t embed).

Basically, two lemons, two handfuls of garlic, two teaspoons of salt, and about a cup of a neutral oil, like grapeseed or avocado (I used peanut, because that’s what I had). Put the lemon juice, garlic, and salt in the bottom of an immersion-blender sized cup and blend it down to a paste. Then add the oil and blend some more (it takes a few minutes) until it creates an emulsion. Consistency should be like mayonnaise. I’ve made this in a food processor before, but the immersion blender has worked the best of anything I’ve tried.

The Veg

When I initially made this, I did a little meditterranean salad of onion, cucumbers, tomato, and parsley (see below). Honestly? Too chunky. Just go onion, tomato, and lettuce, maybe tossed with a little olive oil and red wine vinegar.

COOK IT UP

Pita Bread
Meat Mixture
Pan
Fixins
Sauce
Cheese (optional, but I liked it)

First of all, if you can, find a Middle Eastern market nearby and get your pita bread there. They usually have the kind that comes in daily rather than the supermarket stuff that sits there all week. Tortillas, gorditas, gyro-style flatbread, etc. also work in a pinch.

I used pita, and I just took some scissors to cut around the edges to open them up:

Now, heat up your pan to about medium, medium-high. Here’s how I set up my little station:

I got my meat mixture, pitas, and a little spreader knife (you can also use a butter knife, spoon, or your hands) in a bowl of water (it will get sticky and harder to use as you go along without the water).

Then I just spread the meat on the pita half:

And then plonk the pita half meat side down on the hot pan:

You can even smush it down real flat like a smash burg:

Once you get the meat nice and cooked and charred, you can flip it over and grill the bread in the meat grease:

And from there, you got it: it’s fixin time.

(Do as I say, not as I do: don’t put big chunks of cucumber like this, and maybe add some shredded cheese, it’s nice).

Meat, fixins, sauce, fold, eat.

Much like with my ravioli experiment, the meat juice moistens the starch as it cooks, and steams through the bread, which you then can toast in the rendered fat. It feels like a good system, no wasted parts. I’m a simple man: I like my ground meat heavily seasoned and my bread toasted in fat. I also love a one-handed meal with a garlicky sauce and all the fixins.

Did I sacriligiously mash-up the cuisines of at least four or five distinct cultures? I certainly did. But you know what? It was delicious. I would do it again. And hey, at least I didn’t put avocado on it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m absolutely going to put avocado on this as soon as I send out this recipe.