Alright everyone, get ready for a monumental news flash – I now have a new favorite dinner. It is these chicken gyros. While this title was previously held by a simple cheesy pasta dish, the gyros now reign supreme. To prove it, I will say this – I made these twice in the last week. I almost made them again this week (and I probably will make them again next week)…and I almost never repeat recipes within the same month, because I just have too many that I still want to try. The first night I made them, I made them with store-bought pitas and they were fabulous. Then I made them again a few days later with homemade pitas and they were truly sublime. I love the cool garlicky, cucumbery sauce, the flavorful chicken, and the soft pita. It all combines into a phenomenal culinary experience, and the leftovers make a lunch you will definitely look forward to the next day.
Not only are these a treat to eat, but they are fun to make as well. I get a kick out of straining the yogurt and seeing how much liquid is drained off. (Elly mentions in her recipe not to use nonfat yogurt. One of the times I made this, I accidentally bought nonfat and didn’t have time to run to the store for more, so I just used it and strained it anyway. It actually still tasted fabulous, I just drained off a lot more liquid than normal.) I used my food processor to shred the cucumbers, since I didn’t think I would be very successful using a cheese grater and doing it by hand. Definitely the most fun part of making these is squeezing the water out of the cucumbers. I am sure there are lots of good ways to do this, but I found just wrapping them in a few layers of paper towels and squeezing works great. Also, a quick note on the pitas – since posting the recipe originally, I have found that I really have to add a significant amount of flour to the dough to make it even remotely workable as opposed to a gigantic sticky mess, so I have edited the old version to reflect more closely what I think I do now.
Now, run to the kitchen and make these. You will be glad you did!