This is a hassle-free recipe for home-made Gyros (Doner kebab) with oriental spices. Just combine all the ingredients together, put it in the oven and enjoy a delicious meal.
Doner kebab is a famous Turkish street food that has conquered Europe lately. It basically consists of cooking meat in a vertical rotisserie and is usually served in some kind of flatbread or pitta bread with salad. A great treat to your belly after a wild evening out.
In the US it usually comes with the name “Gyros”, which is the Greek word for meat on a vertical spit. While the Greeks use pork (and sometimes chicken), the Turkish Doner is made with ground lamb. You may also find Doner with a mix of ground lamb and beef.
While you would need a vertical rotisserie to make the real thing, I share with you a simple way to treat yourself with a take-out made at home. I follow the Turkish tradition and use ground lamb with all the essential herbs and spices.
It’s quite easy to make and will look quite impressive for a dinner party. Serve it hot with some warm pitta bread, tzatziki and salad. Get the tzatziki recipe here. Yummy!
- 1 kg (2.2 lb) ground lamb.
- 1 large onion chopped.
- 2 teaspoons of ground cumin.
- 3 garlic cloves finely chopped.
- 4-5 tablespoons of dried oregano.
- Salt and ground pepper.
- Add all of the ingredients in a large bowl and knead well for 3-4 minutes. Cover with cling film and keep in the fridge for a couple of hours.
- Preheat the oven at 170 Celsius (340 F).
- Place a large piece of greaseproof paper on your working bench. Use the meat mixture and create a long loaf. 1 kg of meat will give you probably two loafs. Try to make them relatively thin and long. Cover the loaf with the paper and use some aluminium foil to seal it.
- Place the loafs on a baking tray and add 3-4 cups of hot water.
- Cook for 2 hours while adding some hot water from time to time.
- Carefully open the foils and slice the loafs. If they seem uncooked, place some slices on a greaseproof paper and cook them in the oven for ~ 15 minutes at 180 Celsius (360 F). However, that may make your doner a bit dry.
- Serve them wrapped in warm pitta bread together with tzatziki, tomatoes and sliced onion.
- Bon appetit!
Really yummy recipe, a tiny bit spicy for my fussiest eater but still a very successful meal we’ll cook again. Loved the cooking technique too, easy to clean up!