Gyro, Giro, Yiros, Yeeros or Donner Kebabs

Whatever you call them, they're delicious!

I hadn't had a Yeeros since before I left Australia almost 6 years ago. I didn't even have one when I went back for a visit in 2009. They are readily available here in the US, although they are a bit different. The pita bread is small and fairly thick in contrast to what I'm used to...12" (30cm) or so and 1-2mm thick, so much meat you can't taste anything else and you need a knife and fork to eat it.

So, after scouring various sources for recipes, I'm able to make my own.

The basic ingredients are pita bread, tzatziki (cucumber yogurt dip), yeeros meat, shredded lettuce, tomato, onion, tabouleh and chilli sauce or hummus.

First off, I didn't make the yeeros meat, as I can actually buy it at the local supermarket cheaper than I can make it. But, here is the recipe if you want to try it yourself.

1 pound ground lamb
1/2 cup very finely chopped (or shredded) onion
2 teaspoons fresh minced garlic
3/4 teaspoon salt (preferably sea salt)
1/2 teaspoon dried ground marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried ground rosemary
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Mix everything together and let sit in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

Blend in a food processor for about 1 minute. (When cooked, this will help give it a more traditional yeeros feel on your palate. Otherwise, it just takes like cooked minced meat.)

Bake in the oven in a loaf tin for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, at 325F. It should be a bit dry.

Next, make your tabouleh. I've always been scared of making tabouleh but found out is so simple to do and really does taste good.

3 bunches flat leaf parsley

1 bunch mint

4 or 5 green onions (with the green parts)

4 tomatos medium size chopped into small cubes

100g of burghul

1/2 cup lemon juice

4 tbs olive oil

Salt and Pepper

Soak the burghul in cold water for 1/2 an hour then drain.

Chop the parsley, mint and green onions in a food processor until finely chopped.

Mix all the ingredients together, taste and adjust seasoning if needed. 

Just a note on the burghul. Burghul is a form of cracked wheat. It should be readily available at any health food store.


Next make your Tzatziki. Tzatziki is a dip made with Greek yogurt, cucumber and garlic. I'm not a fan of Greek yogurt or any other yogurt for that matter, but I like this. (How wog am I?)

1 cup Greek yogurt

¼ English cucumber, chopped into small pieces

4 garlic cloves, crushed

Salt and pepper

Combine all the ingredients together and mix them well, then cover and rest for at least an hour.

Now is time for a confession. I tried twice today to make Pita bread and failed miserably. I initially followed the recipe I had, but it called for so much water compared to flour that what I ended up with wasn't a dough...it was more like soup!


I cut the water down on the second attempt but the "dough" was still too sticky and I couldn't get  it to the size I wanted. So, a quick run down the road to the local Middle Eastern Market (lucky huh!), I had a bag of pita bread for $1.89. Yeah, I know, I should have just done that in the first place, cause it is cheaper than making it. (That's one of many culinary failures and no doubt, not the last.)


Here's the recipe for the pita if you want to have a bash yourself. It's up to you, but I'll be buying mine from now on.

3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons yeast
1 cup water, roughly at room temperature
2 tablespoons olive oil

Place all ingredients in bread pan of your bread machine, select Dough setting and start.

When the machine is done kneading the dough, place it in a bowl that has been lightly coated with oil. Form a ball out of the dough and place it into the bowl, rolling the ball of dough around in the bowl so that it has a light coat of oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.

When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release some of the trapped gases and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees, put baking stone in the oven to preheat as well.

After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on a work surface and place one of the balls of dough there. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough and use a rolling pin to stretch and flatten the dough. You should be able to roll it out to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before trying again.

If you have a spray bottle in the kitchen, spray a light mist of water onto your baking surface and close the oven for 30 seconds.

Open the oven and place as many pitas as you can fit on the hot baking surface. They should be baked through and puffy after 3 minutes.

When you've got the ingredients ready to go (remember to let the Tzatziki rest for at least an hour) it's time to get making this fine delicacy.


First, you need to heat up your yeeros meat. It should be sliced very thin, so just tear it into reasonable size pieces, pile it into a large frying pan and warm/cook it through. It doesn't matter if a few bits get crispy. Drain it on paper towel as lamb is greasy and there will be a lot grease left in the pan.

Next just assemble, pita bread then tzatziki. You could put hummus in pace of the tzatziki.

Next, put on your yeeros meat and if you want it, chilli sauce. (I doctored up some Heinz chilli sauce by putting hot sauce in it, still not as good as Masterfoods chilli sauce from back home)

Throw on your tomato, onion, lettuce and tabouleh.

Roll it up, wrap it up and tuck in!

Enjoy.


Matt

Shrimp with Warm Coleslaw

Being a bachelor this week means I can try something that sounds a bit weird. I saw this on Yahoo yesterday (courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens) and thought it sounded interesting.

Now, for those Americans amongst you, we actually call shrimp prawns. As far as I know, they are the same thing. And if Paul Hogan had ever said he'll throw another shrimp on the barbie back in Australia, he'd have been deported!


So, I have to say, this dish is not as weird as it sounds for a very simple reason...cabbage, carrots and red cabbage are "usually" eaten cooked. So, warm or cooked coleslaw, while sounding a bit strange, actually makes sense.


On with the recipe.

Ingredients:

16 fresh jumbo shrimp in shells (I only had large, so I put in 20)

8 slices thick-cut bacon, halved (if you are not in America, try and get American bacon as the Australian/English/Canadian type won't work)

1-1/2 lb. coleslaw mix (about 11 cups) that's a bag of pre-mixed

1/4 cup red wine vinegar (I thought it could use a touch less, try 3 tablespoons instead)

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh chives (got mine straight from our herb garden)

Directions:

Peel and de-vein shrimp. Rinse shrimp; pat dry. Set aside.

In a large frying pan, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp.

Transfer bacon to paper towels; reserve fat. You'll have to cook the bacon in batches, so each time you remove the cooked bacon, empty the fat into a container.

Return 2 tablespoons fat to pan.

Add shrimp to hot fat; cook and stir over medium heat 4 to 5 minutes or
until shrimp are opaque. Remove from pan; keep warm. I just threw them in some aluminium (yes, it's spelt correctly!) foil and sealed it.

Add coleslaw mix to hot pan (add 1 to 2 tablespoons additional bacon
fat if necessary; discard remaining fat). Cook and stir over medium
heat 6 minutes or until coleslaw mixture is wilted and just tender.

Stir in vinegar and chives. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Crumble cooked bacon and add it to coleslaw mix with the vinegar and chives.

Divide mixture among 4 plates and top each with 4 shrimp.

If you're at all concerned with calories, don't be. As I cooked this dish, it's 157 calories per serve. Because I'm a growing lad, I had 2 serves and have the rest in the fridge for another night. I'll just bung it in a frying pan and heat it up slowly so it doesn't burn.

Also, because, as some of you know, if you're not sweating, you're not eating, I threw some crushed red chilli and some cayenne pepper in for some bite.

I was thinking later tonight that I would really taste good if you had a seafood mix in it instead of just shrimp. I think I'll make it again but have shrimp, calamari rings and scallops.


Remember, it may look weird, but it tasted alright, was light in calories and easy to cook.

Enjoy.

Matt

Getting your Shine on

Last night and this afternoon I made Grandma's Apple Pie. Now, before you think this is just another pie recipe, think again...this apple pie you drink!

Essentially this is moonshine, but it's NOT illegal. It's made with Vodka. "Proper" moonshine is neutral grain alcohol. Vodka is neutral grain alcohol. So, moonshine is pretty much homemade Vodka. There are recipes all over the net for this stuff and they're all pretty much the same.

The ingredients are:

1 gallon apple cider
1 gallon apple juice
3 cups firmly packed brown sugar
7 stick cinnamon
3 750ml (1/5th) bottles 151 proof (75.5% alcohol) vodka
If you really want to be more authentic, you can throw in some cloves as well, I don't.
12 quart jars with lids

There's a lot of people that insist you use 190 proof (95%) alcohol called Everclear. Unfortunately or fortunately, it is not available in a lot of States because of it's alcohol content, so it needs to be mail ordered, making it cost prohibitive. I can get 151 vodka in my local supermarket and have found it's a perfectly good substitute.

First things first. You'll need the biggest pot you can find. I actually have a big pasta pot that I use for everything but cooking pasta and it just holds everything.

Put your pot on the largest burner on your stove. Put in your brown sugar, apple cider, apple juice and cinnamon sticks. (Cloves as well, if you're using them) Bring this concoction to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once it comes to the boil (that could take a 1/2 hour or more) turn off the heat and let it cool to room temperature.

Cooling it off is critical! If you add the booze while it's hot, you'll just burn it off and that would be a waste!

I let mine cool over night. In fact, when I went into the kitchen this morning about 6, the pot was still warm to the touch...mind you, I took it off the heat around 7 last night! When I made it in the winter, I put the pot out in the snow and it took about 6 hours to cool down enough.

Once it's cooled right down, remove the cinnamon sticks and cloves if you've used them. Get your empty juice containers, a funnel and some cheese cloth. Fold the cheese cloth over itself enough times so that you can sit it in the funnel and drape it over the sides. I fold mine in half three times and have it work well. Now you want to filter your "juice" as it will have "bits" in it. Sometimes a cinnamon stick will disintegrate and you want to get that out. I use a 2 cup jug to decant (for want of a better word) the "juice" from the pot into the funnel with the cheese cloth in it.

Wash out your pot and put the alcohol in it. Then add the "juice". This is easier and having to stir it because you put the "juice" in first.

Now all you have to do is decant the mixture into your quart jars and put them somewhere cool. In the winter I just have it in the garage and in the summer it goes in the basement. Throw a jar in the fridge and you're all set. But be careful, it tastes too good and it WILL sneak up on you.

 
With the quantities I make, the alcohol ends up coming in at 17% alcohol because of the dilution. I have made it with 2 bottles of 151 and that came in at 12% alcohol...I prefer mine with just a bit more spark.  

Enjoy

Matt

It's pizza night tonight!!

We've started a bit of a tradition in this house. Every Saturday night is family pizza night. It even has it's own song...it's pizza night tonight, it's pizza night tonight, it's pizza night TONIGHT, it's pizza night tonight...etc, etc. If you've ever seen that great Australian movie, The Castle, it's very similar to the Bonnie Doon song...monotonous and repetitious...drives Chanin up the wall.

Anyway, we started making pizza's using packaged pizza dough mix. We usually used 2 packets and made the pizzas rectangular. Since the arrival of the bread maker, we've been making our own with varied results. I believe I've almost got it down to a science now. What I'm going to try next week is cold proofing. That's when you make the dough the day before, when it's finished mixing, form it into a ball, place it in a greased container with a lid and bung it in the fridge. From what I've read, it vastly improves the taste of the dough...dunno, but I'm going to give it a whirl.

Just like my bread, I use the recipe in the bread machine manual, but I've reconfigured it to make 2 pounds of dough. That gives us 2 pizzas with a good crust...not too thin and not too thick.

1 1/3 cups water (room temperature)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt - again, I use Kosher not table
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
Now for the weird part:
3 3/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons bread flour - it's easier to make it 4 cups and take 2 teaspoons out.
2 3/4 teaspoons yeast

I should note that when you do the flour, DO NOT just scoop the flour out of the container. Instead, either pour it out of the container or scoop it into something then put it in your measure. Apparently, if you scoop it out with your measure, it compacts and could add at least 1 tablespoon extra of the product. Not good when baking, as from what little I know, baking usually needs precision.

I normally run this on the dough cycle. When it does the first rise then punches down, I take it out of the machine, divide it in half, form the dough in balls by shaping them with my hands (not rolling them around on the bench) and place them into oiled mixing bowls to proof. As I mentioned above, I'm going to try making the dough a day in advance and see if it makes any difference to me.

You'll want to pre-heat your oven to 500F (260C) right as you do the next step. If you have a pizza stone, I do and can't recommend one enough, put it in the oven now on the lowest shelf. You'll need the hour while the dough rests to get to the temperature properly.


Depending how you make the dough, (if it's straight away, let it sit in the bowl, covered with plastic wrap for at least an hour, alternatively, if you make it the day before and cold proof, take it out of the fridge an hour before you want to use it.) put it onto a lightly floured bench and roll it out to what ever size you want. If you don't have a pizza peel you may have to roll it onto a pizza tray or form it in a cookie sheet. As an aside, the absolute best pizza peel I have found (and bought) is this http://www.superpeel.com/ I tried an aluminium pizza peel that just did not work for me at all. This one is the goods, super easy to use and clean...as Molly would have said, do yourself a favour!

Once you have it rolled out, if you like thin crust pizza, you'll need to dock your dough. Basically that means to use either a fork or a pizza docker (looks like a very small rolling pin with spikes on it with one handle) to prick holes in the dough, so that the air escapes and will not allow it to rise when cooked. We've tried with and without docking and prefer without.

Spoon on your pizza sauce and top with whatever you like. I make my own pizza sauce which I adapted from a recipe from my all time favourite cook, Margaret Fulton. I use canned tomato products instead of fresh because I like the sauce a bit thinner, not chunky.


1 large can tomato puree or sauce, whatever they call it (about 750g)
1 can diced tomatoes (about 410g)
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil (or 1 tablespoon chopped fresh)
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon brown sugar - this is where we differ, we like our sauce sweeter so we add a lot more brown sugar.
salt and freshly ground black pepper.


Put it all into a saucepan and simmer gently for about 40 minutes. Remove bay leaf and let cool before using.

This makes enough for about 6 pizzas, depending on how much sauce you put on. It freezes well, so put the leftovers in containers and freeze it. I put it in small containers, so I have individual servings.


OK, top your pizza with whatever you like. We make one cheese pizza for Connor and my father-in-law, Senior, and one for ourselves. Cheese, diced ham, marinated artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, green capsicum (bell pepper), fresh garlic and a bit more cheese.

Slide your pizza into the oven, either on your tray or pizza stone and cook it for at least 12 minutes. The time varies a little bit, but you'll have to experiment to see what works for you.

Here's the finished cheese pizza.

Our pizza before going into the oven.

Out of the oven.

Slices of each.

The Connor seal of approval. 

Matt

Bread

Today is bread making day. I cheat a bit and use a bread maker to mix the dough, as the older Sunbeam Mix Master that my mother-in-law gave me isn't powerful enough to mix the dough. And, to be honest, I really don't like the prospect of kneading dough for 20 minutes or so. That being said, I do the final rise/proofing in a bread pan because I like a "normal" looking loaf of bread rather than the tall narrowish type with the hole in the bottom like the bread makers produce. One day I might get a pullman bread pan. If you don't know what that is (I didn't either, until I saw one), it is a bread pan with a sliding lid. That's why square loaves of bread at the supermarket are like that, they use a type of pullman pan. Here's one at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/USA-Pans-Pullman-Aluminized-Americoat/dp/B002UNMZPI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308429252&sr=8-1

I just follow the recipe that came with the manual to make a White Wheat Bread. Here's the ingredients with a change or two:

1 cup water, minus 2 teaspoons. (If you don't take out that tiny bit of water, the dough can be too moist and will collapse when it goes in the oven. When it collapses, it will be dense.)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt - I use Kosher salt, not table salt
1 rounded tablespoon sugar - the recipe calls for 3 tablespoons but it's way too sweet, like almost all of the bread here in the USA. You still need sugar for the yeast to eat but not so much.
3 tablespoons lecithin - liquid or granular - I use this in place of the oil/butter. Here is a good link explaining dough enhancers http://www.breadmachinedigest.com/tips/dough-enhancers-and-how-to-use-them.php I use it to keep the bread from drying out, so it lasts for a week or so. You can get Lecithin in any health food store or somewhere like Whole Foods.
2 cups white bread flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoons bread machine yeast - I use Red Star brand as I can get it at the local supermarket in a jar, instead of just using individual packets. Stored in the fridge it keeps for yonks.

So, here is all the ingredients in the machine.

Mixing vigorously.

After it's first two rises in the machine, I take it out, put it on a floured surface and knead it 4 times. Lastly, I shape it a bit, ending up with this.

I put it in a greased bread pan (cooking spray) and push it into the corners.

I turn the oven on to 350F (175C), cover the bread with some plastic wrap with some cooking spray on it and let it do it's thing. I sit it on top of the oven as it's nice and warm there. This takes anywhere up to 45 minutes, depending on how much you want it to rise. Your oven will actually be at the right temperature by then. I have an internal thermometer in our oven, and when the "dinger" goes off telling me it's at the right temperature, it's not even close. SO, big tip here: If you want to really know how hot your oven is, get an internal oven thermometer.

When it's ready, it goes in the oven for 30 minutes and comes out looking like this.

Home made bread, whether you like white, wheat, wholegrain or whatever, I believe, will taste far far better than what you can buy at the supermarket, is easy to do, you know just what's in it rather than a list of chemicals and as an added bonus, your house smells fantastic!!

Matt

Well, here it is. The inaugural post in my little blog. Comfort food. What is it about the food that we grew up eating as kids?

Tonight I had something that almost every Aussie kid, and I would imagine English kids too, would have had numerous times during the year. 

Bacon, eggs and baked beans on toast. When I say baked beans, I don't mean the one's you typically get in the supermarket here, with the barbecue sauce flavour. I'm talking about the true blue baked beans with tomato sauce. You can buy them in certain supermarkets, mainly where they have an International section, or I think I saw them at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods a week ago. They also stock them in World Market.

This is what you should be looking for.

Too easy to make. Whack the beans in a pot and warm over a low/medium heat until bubbling, stir them every now and then so they don't stick, then turn them off and put the lid on the pot. Cook you bacon...thick sliced American bacon is easy, you microwave it. Paper plate, 2 pieces of paper towel, bacon then another piece of paper towel. Bung it in the microwave for 3 1/2 minutes and it's done. Cook the eggs to your liking and while your at it, toast the bread. If you're lucky enough to make your own bread (I do...post tomorrow all about it) cut it thick (is there any other kind for toast?). Throw on the bacon, then the beans and lastly the egg. Season to your taste. I like mine with Sriracha sauce and ketchup. Dig in.

So this is what I had.

It was delicious. 

Not much for a first post, but it's still good tasting all the same.

Matt