Alliteration.
This is a little late if anyone has leftover lamb from Easter. I fully intend to be in control of this blog posting things I know full well how to do and sharing some of my unique (at times) culinary style, however I wanted to get a quick post up to share something I never really thought to do.
Every Easter I put out a spread. I describe it as a cooking holiday for myself. I refuse to travel, I refuse to really do anything other than enjoy being in the kitchen creating good food and drink good wine all day. I tell people to come if they want. They always come.
I always make octopus and scungili salad, Easter bread and a roast leg of Lamb. I put out some cheeses and sopressata and always have a fresh loaf of crusty Italian or French bread too. And wine, lots of wine. This year I also made a Tiramisu mousse that I saw on the Foodwishes youtube channel.
We're so bad at taking pictures of our food (feels toolish), but here's the partially sampled Easter Bread and my Octopus/potato salad (didn't get scungili this year):
And that's all the pictures I have. I wish I got the lamb, but it didn't look that great. A boned leg of lamb is a tough thing to present well in my opinion unless you slice it. Regardless, my guests enjoyed it, I enjoyed it, everything went well and then I had leftovers.
Last year I did this with my leftovers
I posted a really detailed dough, sauce, build and bake recipe for this on another blog last year. If there's interest I can lift it and repost. I have however PERFECTED my pizza dough recipe and bake technique, I will definitely be sharing that in the future.
Anyway, this year (no pics), I did Gyros. As an Italian, I like to steal from the Greeks.... (joke).
It was actually quick and easy and delicious, I really am excited to do it again. I had probably about a pound of lamb roast leftover, so I'll scale this recipe for that. Again, I'm not an experienced Gyro dude at all
Slice the lamb as thin as humanly possible and place flat in the bottom of a large sautee pan and dump about 1/4 bottle of a cab sauv or similar hearty red on it. Bring this to a steam - no bubbles, but if you get bubbles it's no big deal. During this you can prep the lettuce and taziki. I used a few big romaine leafs and stuffed them into both sides of a halved pita.
Then I put about a cup, maybe a little less of plain greek yogurt into a mixing bowl. I dropped in some minced garlic and a whole finely diced/peeled cucumber. I added a teench of nutmeg, and about a tablespoon of olive oil (didn't measure) and a pinch of kosher salt. I mixed that all up and diced a tomato.
Then, grab some tongs, jam the lamb on top of the lettuce in the pita, throw the taziki on top, top with some tomato and serve.
Yes, there is a lot I could have done differently. As a first time gyro builder, I know now that I'd probably use a bit of lemon juice and zest in the taziki and I'd let it refrigerate for a while. The wine was a nice spin that I will continue doing. This is very similar to how I make my "French Dips" with leftover roast beef. So in that manner, I would consider this more of a function "work-week" or leftover recipe rather than a WOW recipe.
Posted during my lunch hour.
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