Cooking Therapy

Since I was young and growing up in Greece, one of my favorite foods to eat was the Chicken Gyro. The gyro is everything from a late night street food to a sit-down dinner. This recipe includes instructions on how to hand make your own pita bread and tzatziki sauce which takes this simple dish to astronomical levels!

Prep Time: 35 Minutes

Cook Time: 25 Minutes for pita, 10 Minutes for chicken

Wait Time: 1 Hour

Ingredients

4 large chicken breasts, cleaned, butterflied and cubed

32oz Greek yogurt

Olive oil

6oz of beer, preferably a lager or pale ale

The juice from 1 Meyer lemon

4 sprigs of fresh Parsley

3 sprigs of fresh Thyme

4 cloves of garlic, minced

Salt and pepper

6 cups of bread flour

2 cups of warm water

1 package of yeast

1 teaspoon of sugar

2 teaspoons of salt

½ a cucumber, finely minced

Fresh Dill, chopped

Instructions

For the Pita:

• In a small bowl, add the warm water, the sugar, and the yeast and stir. Let it sit so the yeast can settle, until you see the top covered with bubbles from the yeast. Once it has set, add a tablespoon of olive oil to it
• In the bowl of a bread mixer, add the flour and the salt and mix them
• Turn the machine on a medium setting and slowly add the yeast mixture to the flour. Continue on a medium setting until all the water has been added.
• Increase the speed to a high setting and let it spin until a dough ball forms
• Remove the bowl and cover and let sit for an hour until it rises. In the meantime, prep the tzatziki sauce and marinade.

For the Marinade:

• In a large Ziploc bag, add 16 ounces of yogurt, 2 cloves of minced garlic, the beer, lemon juice, the parsley and thyme, a dash of salt and pepper, 1 tablespoon of olive oil and the chicken. Mix well
• Let it marinate for an hour while the dough is rising

For the Tzatziki sauce:

• Take the rest of the yogurt, add the remaining 2 cloves of garlic, the cucumber, dill, and a tablespoon of olive oil, and stir until mixed and yogurt is not as thick. Add more garlic for a garlicky taste

Rolling out and cooking the Pita

• Once the dough has risen, cut and roll it into baseball sized pieces
• Coat a flat surface that you will be rolling the dough out on with flour
• Using a rolling pin, flatten and roll out each piece of dough until thin
• Coat both sides of the pitas with oil
• Heat a frying pan over a medium flame and add the pita. The top side that is not cooking will begin to bubble and rise. Check the cooking side and flip over once it has begun to char and crisp

Cooking the chicken/final preparations

• Drain the marinade off the chicken
• Over a medium flame, cook the chicken until it chars on both sides, about 5 minutes on both sides
• Once the pita and chicken is cooked, begin building your gyro
• Add veggies, French fries or anything you wish to your sandwich
• Enjoy!