Today in Greece, any type of meat is used to make gyros, including their combination (there are even original recipes with fish). The meat is roasted on a vertical rotating spit and then cut into thin layers. Also, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, parsley, lettuce and other vegetables and herbs can be put in Greek shawarma.

Be sure to add french fries, yogurt or tzatziki sauce and a variety of spices. The filling is wrapped in a traditional round pita or served on a plate. The second option is typical for lunch at home or in a restaurant, while the first is considered more common and convenient for.

Essential Ingredient gyrosa - tzatziki. This cold sauce made from yogurt fresh cucumber and garlic, adding salt, fresh herbs. However, in Greece there are many various recipes tzatziki, which may also contain pepper, lemon juice or other ingredients - the taste of the sauce, as a rule, only benefits from this. The largest gyros in the world was prepared by the Greek restaurateur Sami Eid in Chicago. The weight of the shawarma was 8,866 pounds, or over 4,000 kilograms. To set the record, meat was cooked on 72 grills at the same time.

Despite the fact that gyros is a popular and inexpensive street food, everyone in Greece loves to eat it, regardless of status and social status. So delicious and hearty shawarma served in a huge portion and may well replace lunch or, at least, become great snack during the day.

Where to taste the most delicious gyros in Athens

Every year on September 1, National Gyro Day is celebrated around the world - real holiday gyros. On this day, traditional Greek taverns, especially strive to please their guests with discounts on the most popular national street food. And some establishments even cook unusual dishes based on it or organize interesting contests.

But in order to try delicious local shawarma, it is not at all necessary to wait for the beginning of September. Without exception, every city in Greece has its own gyros masters. In Athens, several places are famous at once, where both tourists and the locals themselves love to look.

The Greco's Project (Mitropoleos, 5)

A small restaurant in the center of Athens, specializing in fast food. Shawarma is prepared from pork or chicken, adding tomatoes to the filling, Bell pepper and bow. The cost of a serving is from 2.80 to 9.70 €.

Gioti (Megalou Alexandrou, 1)

Not far from the historical center of the Greek capital, right next to the Metaxourgio metro station, you can find a small and pleasant restaurant serving delicious shawarma and souvlaki. The average cost of a meal is 2-10 €.

Sabbas (Mitropoleos, 86)

The restaurant is located in the heart of Athens, a few meters from Monastiraki Square. Here you can taste not only amazingly prepared Greek gyros, but also compare its taste with Turkish doners and kebabs. Shawarma is prepared mainly from chicken and pork, it costs 8.50 €.

Gyros (Greek shawarma with tzatziki sauce)

Greek gyros (shawarma). Photo: zygossouvlaki.gr

Gyros is a very tasty and juicy Greek shawarma seasoned with yogurt. cucumber sauce tzatziki and wrapped in a flatbread easy cooking. In gyros, except fried meat and fresh vegetables, eat fried potatoes. Easy to do, you'll love it!

Gyros Ingredients

for 2 shawarma

For filling

• Chicken fillet - 300 g;
• Potato - 2 tubers;
• Tomato - 2 pieces;
• Bulgarian red pepper - 1/2 piece;
• Blue onion (red or regular) - 1 head;
• Salt, pepper, oregano (or dried basil) to taste.
• Vegetable oil for frying.

For the tzatziki sauce

• Thick unsweetened yogurt - 150 g;
• Cucumber - 1 piece;
• Garlic - 2 cloves;
• Greens: mint, dill, basil - if available, you can do without;
• Salt - to taste;
• Olive oil (or sesame oil, walnuts) - to taste (optional).

For flatbread

• Flour - 250 g (1 cup + 1 tablespoon);
• Water - 50 g;
• Kefir (or yogurt) - 40 g;
• Egg - 1 piece;
• Dough baking powder - 1/2 teaspoon;
• Salt - 1/4 teaspoon;
• Sugar - 1/2 teaspoon;
• Vegetable oil - 1 tablespoon.

Cooking method

1. Bake gyros cakes

• Knead the dough (add as much flour as needed for a dough that does not stick to your hands). Roll into a ball, sprinkle with flour. Cover with a towel and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
• Divide the dough into 2 parts. Roll them into balls. Flatten the balls into cakes and, clapping, flatten the dough to the diameter of the pan (or roll it out with a rolling pin - sprinkling it and the table with flour).
• Heat up a frying pan, add a little oil. Bake the cakes until small light brown spots appear (as they appear, this side is ready, you need to turn it over to the second side).

2. Prepare the stuffing

While the dough is resting after kneading, you can start filling the gyros.

• Fry the meat: cut the chicken fillet lengthwise into oblong pieces, salt, pepper, sprinkle with oregano. And quickly fry on both sides in a small amount oil until tender (it will take 4-5 minutes). If you have meat that is more convenient to fry more large pieces, you can fry, and then cut into strips.
• fry potatoes: cut the peeled potatoes into large strips (as for deep-frying). Heat vegetable oil, put potatoes in it. Cover with a lid and fry until done. Salt.
• Prepare tzatziki sauce: finely chop or grate peeled cucumber and garlic. Mix with yogurt. Add salt and olive oil. If you add greens, then tear off a few leaves from the stems and finely chop, combine with the sauce.
• Slice fresh vegetables : tomato - slices, bell pepper- stripes, onions - half rings or quarters of rings (if the onion is very large).

3. Collect the ingredients in the gyros

• On ready tortilla put the chicken fillet, potatoes, tomatoes, onions and sweet bell peppers.
• Roll up the cake. Pour the tzatziki sauce inside.

Bon appetit!

Delicious Greek gyros wrapped in paper to keep the sauce from getting dirty. Photo: tsantiri.gr

Cake dough
Tzatziki Sauce Ingredients (you can add herbs and lemon juice to food)
Fried chicken, yogurt, grated cucumbers

Fried breast cut into strips
Fried potatoes for gyros
Peppers, tomatoes and onions for gyros filling

The cake can be flattened with your hands or rolled out and cut evenly (as you like)
Bake a cake (it's fast)
The easiest option Greek sauce with cucumbers

We spread the stuffing on the pita bread. We fill the Greek shawarma with sauce. Ready-made gyros with tzatziki

In fact, gyros is fried meat or shish kebab (souvlaki) and fried potatoes with salad topped with tzatziki sauce. Which is served with bread (flatbread). That is, it is a whole portion of lunch or dinner, including bread.Gyros is often referred to as souvlaki (kebab) wrapped in pita (flatbread), after the name of the main ingredient.

Souvlaki can be wrapped in a flat cake (in a bag or simply bent in half), or eaten from a plate with bread. Gyros can be served on a tortilla without folding it (as on a plate).

Gyros rolled up in a bag and gyros on a flat cake - the creations of Greek chefs

Replacing Ingredients

Sauce

If you don't have yogurt, you can substitute it thick sour cream. Not quite in Greek, but a way out of the situation. The taste will be practically the same, you will just get a more wintery, calorie option. Those who do not like tzatziki can fill the gyros with any sauce you like or eat without sauce, the filling is already quite juicy.

Meat

Chicken can be replaced with pork or turkey (any piece of meat that is quickly fried and easy to work with). Moreover, it is not necessary to use fried meat (or other meat available in the house - boiled, stewed), kebabs (minced meat sausages, small oblong cutlets that can be stuck on and quickly fried) are also suitable. In general, meat for gyros is fried like a kebab on skewers or on a grill on a grill or on an oven grill. But it's too hard for quick recipe, therefore, we simply fry the meat in a pan. If there is neither meat nor minced meat, you can take ham, it is also delicious.

Fast food (literal translation from in English: "fast food") has long ceased to be just a "snack" - this is a rather distinctive and peculiar food culture, and many countries can boast of their own fast food, endowed with national flavor.

Despite the fact that it refers to states that sacredly revere their traditions (and this, of course, also applies to food), fast food is quite common here.
The country lures tourists to itself not only with the gentle sea, amazing cultural and historical heritage, the aromas of freshly brewed, but also with the intoxicating smoke of barbecues.

Firstly, " fast food"preferred by fast-moving young people, and secondly, being a tourist Mecca, Greece treats numerous tourists with its unusual and extremely unpretentious dishes in cooking.

What does a tourist need? That's right: fast, satisfying, and most importantly - a budget snack between swims in the sea and interesting excursions.

You can take your time to appreciate all the charm in the evening, in a cozy tavern or in a pretentious restaurant, while the rest of the time, the priorities of tourists are on the side of local "diners".

And what - even in small cafes or markets, the Greeks know a lot about delicious food, therefore, they lure with breathtaking smells of dishes being prepared and prices that are obviously not burdensome for the wallet, onlookers.

The only thing that threatens passion Greek fast food is a loss of reason from only one type of food and several extra pounds brought back from vacation. But these are trifles!

Interesting fact: in Greece, local "snack bars" even supplanted McDonald's, which, among the networks fast food, perhaps, there are no equals in the world.

What's on the menu

In small Greek cafes and food courts on outdoors you will be offered a fairly rich menu.

Which usually includes:

• salads;
• hamburgers;
• French fries;
• various types of schnitzels;
• crispy toast;
• pancakes stuffed with a variety of goodies, including seafood.

Favorite Greeks are used as additives to "fast" dishes. fresh herbs and vegetables, the usual ketchup, mustard, as well as unusual spicy sauces.

Fast food leaders

The most common fast food dishes in Greece were and still are gyros(something like shawarma/shawarma).

Gyros- thinly sliced ​​\u200b\u200bmeat, packed in a tortilla envelope, supplemented with onions, tomatoes, herbs, sauces, mustard, french fries.
And, of course, the famous - unusual mini-kebabs, the serving of which is not very different from serving a gyros.

What is the difference, you ask? We answer. To prepare gyros, the meat is strung in thin layers on a kind of skewer, from which it is finely chopped and cut.

Unlike gyros, souvlaki is prepared differently: raw meat is immediately cut into small portioned pieces, neat enough, evenly, and baked on skewers.

However, even the Greeks are hotly arguing about what and how to call: somewhere souvlaki is exactly skewers with meat strung on them (kebabs), and somewhere meat (gyros) in pita is called souvlaki.

Interesting fact: they say that, despite all the love of the Greeks for traditional cuisine and the ardent reverence for the traditions associated with it, the dishes that became the forerunners of the current Greek fast food, were not neglected even by the great rulers. And really, what could be better than meat served piping hot and fresh soft pita?

Souvlaki secrets

There is nothing super complicated in this dish: it is understandable, fast food does not tolerate long procedures, complex combinations of products and many hours of heat treatment.

For the components of souvlaki, quite traditional Greek products(which, at self-cooking this dish at home, it is easy to replace more familiar ones).

Pork takes on the main role in souvlaki, but, at the request of the client, lamb, chicken, and even fish can become the basis of the dish, since there is definitely no shortage in the latter on the coast of the state.

The secret of dry, but at the same time fragrant meat - preliminary pickling.

For marinade, the Greeks use their pride -, and spices make up his company ( traditional salt and pepper, as well as oregano) and lemon juice. Prepare meat for open fire or coals.

The meat, strung on skewers and baked, is ready to eat, and the freshest White bread, sliced ​​lemon or its juice.

Mini recipe! Extraordinarily refreshing and at the same time spicy sauce for souvlaki can be prepared by mixing 100-150 grams Greek yogurt And . Mint leaves (add to taste) will give the sauce a unique "zest".

Interesting fact: V Greek The suffix -aki gives the word a diminutive meaning. That is why for souvlaki meat is cut into fairly small neat pieces. If you are offered not souvlaki, but souvla, get ready for the fact that the meat will be cut rather large, in addition, for souvla, the meat is not marinated in advance, but simply generously flavored with salt and pepper.

Hosting a Greek themed party

Instead of standard kebabs For a picnic or barbecue in the garden, try making a simple but delicious Greek "quick meal"!

A bunch of various variations, additions in the form of salads and sauces will not leave indifferent even the most fastidious of your guests.

For cooking we need:

• chicken fillet (breast is best);
• bacon;
• juice of one lemon;
• spices (oregano, pepper, salt to taste - depends on how salty you got the bacon).

1. Previously, chicken meat, cut into even cubes, is marinated for about 20 minutes in a mixture of lemon juice and seasonings.

2. Each piece of marinated meat is wrapped in a strip of bacon. The thinner the bacon is cut, the more likely it is that the chicken won't lose its "clothes" during the cooking process.

3. The meat is strung on skewers, baked for about 15 minutes.

Juicy pork souvlaki

To prepare this version of souvlaki, cook the pork (as an option, the neck): marinate diced meat vegetable oil With lemon juice and spices for several hours, preferably in cool place. Cooking time for pork on skewers is about 20 minutes.