Well kids, it’s the last of my favorites (for now, anyway).  The last two weeks have been a great and tasty way to celebrate my birthday.  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about them.

I close out my birthday menu with the Gyro.

Again, this is nothing complicated. Like The Sandwich, you’re probably underwhelmed by my lack of originality.  Sorry to disappoint, but the Gyro is probably my favorite fast food option, and one of the best street-fest foods out there. And not just at 1 AM (thought they do seem to be the tastiest at that time…tried and tested at Oktoberfest 2009).

While it seems that the gyro is actually an American creation, it is no doubt based on the Donor Kebab that originates in Turkey.  Historians believe that the dish actually originated during Alexander the Great’s time, when his soldiers used their long knives to skewer meat and kept turning the meat over fires.

Well, I don’t have a long knife, and I didn’t cook this meal over a fire (well, at least not in the way the Great Alex did…). I did, however, do my best to recreate the flavors and essence of my favorite grab-and-go food.  Easy peasy and no doubt healthier than the one eaten by BLT at Oktoberfest…but man was that good…

Ok, focus. Here’s what I did…Now, there are recipes out there that involve making a meatloaf, which I actually think would do a better job of simulating the meat on a spit that we all know and love (which is usually a mix of lamb and mutton and…other meats). I didn’t do that because I had a random lamb shank in my freezer that I used instead, so I incorporated the donor meat flavors into my marinade.  For the meatloaf-style recipe, check out Alton Brown’s recipe.  I think I’ll try that next time.

Serves 2

Ingredients

For the gyro:

2 pita breads

2 lamb shanks

2 TB olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 TB oregano

1 tsp rosemary

1 tsp cumin

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt and pepper

lettuce

tomatoes

red onion

pickles

Directions

1.  Put the spices, oil, garlic and lemon into a Ziploc bag, swirl the meat around really well and let marinate for a few hours or overnight.

2.  Heat the oven to 350F.

3.  Put the lamb into an oven safe dish and cover with foil.

4.  Bake for about an hour and a half until the meat falls off the bone.

Make the sauce…

Tzatziki sauce

Enough for 2 gyros

Ingredients

½ cup Greek yogurt

Juice of ½ lemon

1 clove minced garlic

2 tsp mint, minced

¼ cucumber, grated

Salt and pepper

Mix it up, real good.

Assemble atop pita bread with your toppings of choice. I used lettuce, tomatoes and red onion.

I really wish I had some pickles as well, but I had already gone to the store twice, and was not about to go again for pickles.

I even wrapped it in paper to fool myself into thinking I was at the Munich Hauptbahnhof. It didn’t work, but the gyro was still tasty.

Today’s offering is a condiment, this honey Dijon dipping sauce. A condiment that goes with the best sandwich ever (aside from The Best German Chicken Sandwich).

(more…)

The more I try and find swaps for my beloved Sunday morning feast, the more I realize I should just stick with what works, my regular plain Jane pancakes.

Not that there was anything wrong with the Serabi that I made. It’s just that there wasn’t anything extraordinary about them, even with the Kinca sauce and coconut milk… and if I’m going to forgo something that I love for something new, that something new better be extraordinary.

Serabi are Indonesian pancakes that are generally served as snacks or with tea, with toppings that can range from fruit to meats.  Moral of the story is that Serabi aren’t eaten so much for breakfast. I don’t put much stock in society’s rules about when you should eat certain foods: I eat eggs for breakfast, ice cream for dinner and cereal for lunch, all on a semi-regular basis.  Therefore, in my house, Serabi was going to be a breakfast pancake.

Serabi differs from my traditional pancakes in a few respects. First, they are made with rice flour or tapioca rather than all-purpose. Second, they aren’t adorned with a syrup, but rather a coconut sauce called Kinca.  Third, they are only cooked on one side.

The recipe I found called for some pretty unique ingredients: pandan paste, palm sugar and pandan leaves**. Adventures in the Asian market yielded only the leaves, so the rest I settled for our more western substitutions. If you can find the original ingredients, go for it!  I wandered around the market for some time looking for the rest but ran into a wall when 1) the shop’s staff spoke little English and 2) I neither could speak or read packages in their language.  I don’t even think Tomato would have been able to walk me through it this time.

**Here’s an interesting read about Pandan leaves, what they’re used for and how they taste. They apparently have a tendency to turn things green, which explains why many of the Serabi recipes I found looked like they contained food coloring. Turns out they contained nature’s food coloring!**

These are my Pandan leaves, found in the freezer section. I wonder what happens if I don’t cook them! Best not to test my theory…

Serves 2-4

Recipe adapted from JojoKaya

Ingredients

1 ½ cups rice flour

1 cup lite coconut milk

1 tsp salt

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp pandan paste (or vanilla extract)

For the sauce

1 cup lite coconut milk

½ cup palm sugar or brown sugar

½ tsp salt

3 Pandan leaves

Directions

1.   Combine the flour, salt and baking powder, Gradually add the coconut milk and stir to make a smooth batter.  Add the egg and vanilla. Let the batter rest for 30 minutes.

2.  Meanwhile, make the sauce:

            In a saucepan, bring the coconut milk, sugar, salt and leaves to a boil.  Stir continuously to prevent scorching. Reduce to desired thickness and then remove from heat.

3.  Make the pancakes:  Preheat a lightly oiled cast iron skillet over medium high heat, reducing it to lower heat when you’re ready to cool. Ladle about ¼ cup of batter onto the skillet.  Cook until the pancake is brown on the bottom and the top part is set. 

4.  Remove from heat and continue with reaming batter.

While the kinca syrup was tasty and different, I still found myself underwhelmed.  I guess you don’t know unless you try!