So pumped to share this with you – and to again showcase the Trompo from Trompoking.com for y’all. I got another recipe primed and ready to go using this, but the gyro was definitely going to come first. It’s one of my favorite meals, and I couldn’t wait to do it myself. Say it each week, but I’ll say it again: Recipe linked up top because I know how much of a pain it is on some sites to make you scroll through the words.
I’ll say doing a couple of these on the trompo so far is really making me want a legit vertical rotisserie. We don’t get the crisp doing it this way, but you get so much flavor because we get the smoke. It’s a trade off so pick your poison. Anyway, let’s get going.
The Prep Table
We’re going with a half lamb/half beef blend for this one. If you’re wondering why I white out some of the items on posts, it’s mostly a location-based thing. Y’all don’t need to know which precise shop I purchased some items at, so I leave that out. My ground beef is thawed, tomato sliced, and leftover salad lettuce (romaine) rounds it out. We’re going thin for a lot of this. Post cook, we’re going to slice the meat as thin as we can. Onion, thin. Pita’s are all made different and I often get ones that like to break with thicker additions. These particular pitas worked beautifully however.
So it’s a total pain in the ass, but one I’m going to tell you is crucial. You saw me do this when on my part one of the Koobideh Kebab – I say part one because I’m looking forward to doing this again – and better. Throw your diced onion in a cheese cloth and squeeze the shit out of the juices. You’ve served us well, but we don’t need it. I recommend the use of food-grade gloves when you do this for obvious reasons.
We’re going to throw the onion, garlic, and spice into a food processor with our two-pound meaty blend. Make a beautiful blended meat product and then the shaping is crucial. Know the spit you’re going to attach this to, so shape it appropriately. We’re going for a compressed meat football and we’re going to wrap it in plastic. Throw it in the refrigerator to set and get to it the next day. Meat football below:
The Process
Get the sandwich ingredients ready because we’re going to make magic. I told you we wanted thin, and thin is what I did. The long onion slice ensures an oniony bite the length of the pita. Thin tomato and some chopped lettuce. Feel free to go full chopped iceberg, but I had leftover romaine on hand.
I feel like I’m not doing it justice by doing the gallery for the progression, but I’m throwing a lot of pictures your way on this post. Plan on a long cook – maybe 4-5 hours at 250F degrees. This post is “Smoker Gyro”, so we’re smoking. We need to keep the temp low, but also get it to a safe temperature – around 170 degrees. We’ll do a post sear (spoiler) so don’t worry if you get hungry and impatient around 160-165 like I did. I tried to document the progression with the three pictures above, but this last one shows you the real result.
I captioned as such because the bottom spillage looks a little weird. Throwing the meat football vertically to cook, you’re going to get some.. for lack of a better term, meat drainage that’s collected in the pan. All good, nothing to worry about. If you look at the meat and not the tray, you’re like, “Aw, hell yeah”. If you’re the first timer reading this – pink isn’t bad when we’re using the smoker. Use your thermometer and verify.. we’re smoking food so pink isn’t always bad.
The Result
You know how you know pink isn’t always bad? Take a look:
Now, this is pretty damn good. That first slice you see on the left. I ate it immediately. I needed to know. I needed to taste. And it was phenomenal. The problem is, there’s only a limited amount of those exterior pieces. I sliced this up, and as we got close to the spit, had to chunk it up a bit.. as shown:
Because that first cut slice was so good, we have to re-create that. Your shops have the vertical cooker which always directs heat at the exterior. Slice it off and it continues to char the outside. We don’t have that luxury, but we can pan-sear. And pan-sear we shall:
This takes a minute or two each side. We’re just adding some texture since it’s already cooked. I say again, don’t sleep on this step. Throw it in the pan then onto the pita.
What a delicious product. Does it beat your gyro shop sandwiches? I mean, yeah it kind of does. You’re not getting smoke on those but check out the smoke ring on this one. I ate these all week and re-heated is just as good. Throw the slices into the pan to get the heat/texture and you’re good to go for another sando. After four days (or so) of gyros, I had to change it up. Hence the next section: The Bonus.
The Bonus
I threw this picture in here because after a few refrigerator days – I threw this on the pan as described and that’s what you got. Rivals any of your shops gyro’s guaranteed – plus smoky. Thanks TrompoKing! But I’m going to throw a different idea out there. Gyro Fries.
Throw a pita down, top it with some fries and add the usual ingredients. I diced out the onion/tomato, put the tzatziki on there and ate it all with a fork. Any of the leftover shrapnel was wrapped up in our pita and finished off. Hey, good is good and this was exactly that. Like what you see? Sign up for your e-mails and get these e-mailed to you every FRIDAY. One-a-week!