Lamb Gyros?

[SHAMALICIOUS]

You seem to have some strange eating places where you live, Shamalicious.... Get yourself over to Edinburgh, the doners are good in most of the takeaways, with the same method of the oil dripping out of the meat stack before they cut off thin slices which is served with fresh salad in a pitta bread pocket.

Mind you, we do get offered curry sauce or sweetnsour on a fish supper!

Really lol. I live in dundee, not far from you . I never meant donner around the areas i eat, i meant donner here in general, they contain 70% fat. , tell me, your donner doesnt contain 70% fat? Cos if it doesnt, ill come to edinburgh especially for the donner lol.

 

[SHAMALICIOUS]

no offense shamalicious, but are you sure it's a donner (or gyro) you're talking about? With a mixture of lamb, beef, and spices wrapped in a pita from either a Turkish, Greek, or Mid-Eastern place? It looks like this:

Yupp. Exactly wot im talking about lol. Theyre also in indian places

 

[nrkelly]

Yupp. Exactly wot im talking about lol. Theyre also in indian places

wow. how different. well get on over to Edinburgh then! have a "less" fat donner!

 

[SHAMALICIOUS]

Oh yeah. I think almost every indian takeaway serves donner here lol. And theyre all no good for you lol. Im seriously surprised that donner there isnt 70%fat, i thought it would be like that everywhere

 

[Ishbel]

Nope - there's NO WAY I'd contemplate eating anything as fatty as that.... And I don't eat them in Indian or Pakistani takeaways, they are sold by Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Edinburgh folk.

 

[pdswife]

sigh... Now I'm hungry!!
We need to start planning the next trip to Greece!

 

[Steve A]

I was talking to a friend on another site about gyros and souvlaki. Since I used to work in Greece a lot, I was quite used to GOOD food.

Boy, sometimes the stuff I've had in North America was right up there with cardboard. Mind you, other times I've had some really fantastic stuff.

There's a food festival I used to frequent when I worked in Canada called Taste of Danforth (that's a street in Toronto). They'd close of the street to through traffic and all the restaurants would set up stalls and kiosks out front. I think I shocked some poor Greek lady when I asked in Greek, if I could get two spanakopitas and a beer. I paid her, thanked her, again in Greek, and left.

She was happy, I was happy and the friend I had taken with me was aghast. LOL.

About that trip to Greece? How's Glyfada sound?

Ciao,

 

[pdswife]

I was talking to a friend on another site about gyros and souvlaki. Since I used to work in Greece a lot, I was quite used to GOOD food.

Boy, sometimes the stuff I've had in North America was right up there with cardboard. Mind you, other times I've had some really fantastic stuff.

There's a food festival I used to frequent when I worked in Canada called Taste of Danforth (that's a street in Toronto). They'd close of the street to through traffic and all the restaurants would set up stalls and kiosks out front. I think I shocked some poor Greek lady when I asked in Greek, if I could get two spanakopitas and a beer. I paid her, thanked her, again in Greek, and left.

She was happy, I was happy and the friend I had taken with me was aghast. LOL.

About that trip to Greece? How's Glyfada sound?

Ciao,

Can you be packed and ready to go tomorrow?
smiles, T

 

[Steve A]

Ya'sou T,

You mean I have to wait THAT long??

Ciao,

 

[velochic]

Oh yeah. I think almost every indian takeaway serves donner here lol. And theyre all no good for you lol. Im seriously surprised that donner there isnt 70%fat, i thought it would be like that everywhere

Shamalicious, I think you must have an Indian population with a Turkish identity crisis. Döner is not Indian, so if you're getting this from Indian take away, I'd just suggest to you to try it from an authentic Turkish (or Greek gyros) place. This sweet/sour sauce you're talking about isn't authentic and I'd wonder why an Indian restaurant is selling döner. Especially since Indian food is so delicious. I just cannot fathom Indian restaurants serving Turkish food.

About the fat content... at 70% fat, the meat wouldn't stay together on the spit because as the meat cooks, the fat melts and bastes the meat. It would fall apart as the fat melts. It's certainly not a very lean meat mixture that they use, but it's not 70% fat. I would guess it's a 70% meat to 30% fat ratio. You could probably ask for them to shave the meat from the top and not use the fat-basted meat at the bottom, to reduce the fat content.

 

[Ishbel]

Velochic
Traditionally our fish and chip shops were run by Italians, then came the Indians and Pakistanis - who, as well as serving traditional fish suppers, or haggis or pie suppers, offer you the immortal words 'Ye waaaant curry soss (sauce) wi yer chips, hen?'!!! Sounds like in Dundee, they also have kebabs on offer in the Indian/Pakistani takeaway shops!!

 

[velochic]

Velochic
Traditionally our fish and chip shops were run by Italians, then came the Indians and Pakistanis - who, as well as serving traditional fish suppers, or haggis or pie suppers, offer you the immortal words 'Ye waaaant curry soss (sauce) wi yer chips, hen?'!!! Sounds like in Dundee, they also have kebabs on offer in the Indian/Pakistani takeaway shops!!

But why, when they make the best curry in the world??

My husband just reminded me of this awesome gyros takeaway that was run by a family from China. There you go. I shouldn't have sterotyped.

 

[Ishbel]

But the Pakistani shops do have kebabs as part of their food culture, so maybe it wasn't a big step for them to serve them in Greek/Turkish style bread and smear them with Indian curry sauce or Chinese sweetnsour?!!!

 

[velochic]

Good point, because they have naans already. Not much different than pita or pide. I've just never heard of it. I'm probably wrong. I don't have a problem admitting I'm wrong. I was just thinking, "what are the odds of there being a town in Scotland where all the Indian restaurants sells Turkish döner kebap when in the rest of the world the Turks sell it"? I thought she might be confused by term "döner" or "gyros".

 

[Ishbel]

All over the UK, from London to Cornwall to Edinburgh to wherever, the young men who go out on the bevvy (drinking) always round off the night with either an Indian or Chinese meal or a take-away kebab from a mobile van or a take-away shop....! Most Indian restaurants I know don't sell kebabs as a take-away, but sell the lamb patties as a starter. The eating of kebabs in the street, late at night is a young man's rite of passage sort of thing And there seems to be an urban myth that the kebab soaks up the alcohol!

 

[Steve A]

My husband just reminded me of this awesome gyros takeaway that was run by a family from China. There you go. I shouldn't have sterotyped.

It's not about the ingredients that make up the person, but the ingredients that make up the food.

Ciao,

 

[Galeazzo_Ciano]

Cretan Gyros

I am aching, just having read this thread, for gyros like I remember them. We were not long married (many moons ago) when we went to Crete for an October holiday.

The gyros I remember were little strips of lamb/pork, stuck on large skewers like kebabs and cut off in little slices. These were placed in a small, round, thin pitta bread. They were topped with yoghurt, mint, cucumber, tomato and... chips (very thin american style fries), before being rolled up into a sausage shape. How the milky sauce and grease ran down our hands as we greedily devoured these first tastes of foreign food.

I watch Bourdain's programmes, impressed that he gets the same hit out of eating takeaway/junk food, as much as he does the higher end of the market fare.

Pining for Bouzouki, ouzo and greasy-yoghurty hands.

 

[nrkelly]

I like Greek gyros, but Turkish ones are my favorite.

 

[Ellen]

We get very good Doner Kebabs here, from quite a few outlets. But the meat is definately not 70 fat, that would awful.

 

[Queequeg]

I saw Gorden Ramsey's "F Word" last week and they had a on feature Donner kababs. In the Donner Kabab factory they make the Donner from Lamb breast and mechanically recovered meat off the bone. The whole lot is then minced to a paste and seasoned with salt, pepper, oregano amougst others and then squashed into patties and compressed on skewer. Apparently it can only contain beef if its titled a Kabab and not a Donner Kabab. (donner is just lamb)

When i was in greece I saw the pork equivilant which a friend described as a pork cornet. Very strange unleven bread wrap with chips (potato fries)

The only true way to eat a donner Kabab as anybody from the UK or like minded nations will know is after 9 pints of stella (Insert other psuedo-imported strong Larger) at 1.00am served in a toasted pitta bread, with mixed salad, pickled chillies and approximatley 1 litre of "Chillie Sauce" which roughly translates to red paint and chille seeds. Alternately Donner meat and chips with chillie sauce is a suitable beer soaking substitue when you feel like slumming it

EDIT: 70% fat proably isn't far off as lamb breast is really mostly fat. I was surprised it was even meat!