gyro'ing up for summertime goodness

I'll state up front that this is a thinly veiled advert for my spices. You may choose to read on or be successfully subliminally compelled to go directly to my site where you can buy an armful of spices. That would be mountain of spices at emburke.etsy.com. There now- wasn't that subtle, pleasant & agreeable?

Saturday night we made gyros. I used a greek seasoning blend with chicken breasts. A little extra virgin olive oil to lightly coat the breasts so that a small but goodly amount of spices will stay in place- about a table spoon sprinkled over the surface with some kosher salt, cracked black pepper & smoked paprika. I let it set for a couple hours at room temperature in a covered pyrex dish so that the chicken will absorb the spice seasoning & since I planned to grill the chicken I used a little extra of the seasoning to make sure that it wouldn't be burnt off by the fire.

While the chicken marinated I made some Tzatziki sauce to go with it. I modified an online recipe & came up with this variation:

1 cup plain yoghurt
1 large clove fresh garlic, minced (we get ours fresh from the fields at our farm share)
1 cucumber, peeled & diced
3 tb chopped scallions
1 tsp fresh oregano
1 tsp fresh thyme
1 tsp fresh dill
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil (approximately)
1 tsp white blasamic vinegar (approximately)
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
pinch of black pepper
dash of salt

Mix it up & let sit. No, I didn't actually measure any of the ingredients I used & I'm only guessing at approximates here, but it should keep you in the ballpark of tastiness. Tzatziki traditionally has mint in it but, since my seasoning mix already has some mint in it I opted for fresh oregano, thyme & dill. You can add mint as well. Go ahead. It will be OK.

I bought pre-made pizza dough for the gyro wrap from our local store. You can make it fresh, of course, but you would have to do that all way before everything else. I rolled it out into plate size rounds & coated them lightly with olive oil. After grilling the chicken, while the coals were cooler, I grilled the bread quickly on both sides to firm it up. Cooking pizza dough on a hot grill is tricky but it can be done. Just be careful of the hot spots & don't leave the bread over them for too long.

We sliced the grilled chicken breasts into bite size strips & placed them on the grilled bread with a generous amount of Tzatziki sauce, added sliced cucumbers, sliced kalamata olives, mixed greens (arugula compliments it wonderfully), crumbled gorgonzola cheese & sprinkled some Zatar over it. Unfortunately I forgot about Cheryl's pickled vegetables, which would have been great as a side, but Cheryl did make some wonderful lemonade to go with it. It was a great outdoor summertime meal that I hope to repeat again while the weather remains inviting. Give it a try & tell me how it was.