The Meatwave

Shame on me, back in the winter my wife most lovingly gave me the gift of endless rotating meats with the Weber rotisserie attachment, and up until now, all of my exploits with my favorite grilling accessory have been shared with my fellow Serious Eaters, leaving my meaty minions here in the dark. That comes to an end today with one of the most ubiquitous of revolving meats—gyros. While my past adventures with the rotisserie have focused mainly on duplicating one of my favorite chickens, this gyro represents new ground for the Meatwave, so get excited as I bring you into the tasty, tasty land of the lamb gyro loaf.

Truth be told, I'm not the biggest fan of the gyro loaf. For me, the gyro has to be stacks of sliced meat piled high on a vertical rotisserie, then shaved off per order. That method produces juicy meat from the fat that constantly bastes it along with extra crunchy edges—perfection in my book. I wasn't quite sure if that method would fully translate to a horizontal rotisserie, and was kind of interested in learning how to achieve the extra fine texture of the loaf, so decided to take that direction and started the journey by grounding up two pounds of a boneless leg of lamb.

After the grind, the meat was mixed with salt, pepper, and Greek oregano, then allowed to chill for an hour in the fridge. Once nice and cold, the lamb mixture went into the food processor with onion, garlic, and some bacon sliced to add a little more fat to the game. A minute whirl produced a very fine meat mixture, which is the key to getting the end texture of the loaf just perfect.

Once processed, I wrapped the meat tightly in plastic wrap and let it firm up in the fridge overnight so it'd be sufficiently solid to withstand being skewered on the spit—I didn't want my loaf falling apart while it cooked, so this was an important step.

The loaf held together like an all-star on the rotisserie and came out beautifully browned after a 45 minute spin. In an ideal world I would have liked shave the meat off the loaf while still cooking, allowing each newly exposed layer to brown again before carving off the next, but the grill was needed for many other meats that day, so instead I took the whole loaf off and sliced it as is, and while the inside wasn't as pretty as the outside, it still had all the flavor needed.

The gyro loaf was pretty perfect, with a mellow lamb flavor that combined with the oregano and onion to give it a distinctly Greek taste. The texture was super fine and cohesive, and the meat was juicy as can be. I enjoyed mine stuffed in a pita with onion, tomato, and tzatziki, which came together to form such a perfect sandwich that I totally forgot this is the style of gyro that I normally shy away from—long live the loaf!

Published on Tue Sep 14, 2010 by Joshua Bousel

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