Want a takeaway with the added guilt or expense? Enter the Fully Loaded Chicken Gyros Kebab.
This is a quick and easy kebab made using our homemade chicken gyros recipe – it will beat anything you get from a kebab shop. You just can’t get this kind of freshness anywhere else.
Think freshly cooked herby fragrant Chicken Gyros, zingy lime yoghurt, fresh homemade chilli sauce, warmed pitta bread and quick pink pickled onions. Layer these up twice in the pitta and you have a fully loaded hand held masterpiece.
This recipe is built in two parts:
- The Chicken Gyros
- The fillings: Yoghurt, onions and chilli sauce.
Both parts require minimal effort with the technical aspect of the cooking process being quite easy. Don’t be put off by thinking it’s difficult to make a kebab, it’s really quite simple. After one attempt you will see what we mean.
Sure, you could make it easier by using store bought chilli sauce, and we won’t be mad at that, not at all. But in the essence of keeping things homemade we’ll show you just how easy it is to make a chilli sauce in 10 minutes. Seriously, 10 minutes.
We bet you’re also thinking “pickling, how on earth…”. Well it’s easy. About as easy as making a bowl of cereal (sort of…). Quick pink pickled onions require three easy stages: 1. Slicing thin 2. Salting 3. Squeeze of Lemon. Done. Let them sit for the time it takes for your chicken to cook and you’re ready to go.
This recipe is designed to ensure you get everything done by the time the chicken is cooked. Keep things simple and stress to a minimum. You could also make everything in advance, and make more than you need so you can have leftovers the next day.
As always, read the recipe in full first, read the notes and try and follow all the steps to the T. We guarantee that if you do, you’ll have the most magnificent Chicken Kebabs you’ve ever made at home.
Fully Loaded Chicken Gyros Kebab
Equipment
- Small saucepan
- Tupperware x3
- Frying Pan / George Forman
- Immersion Blender / Blender
- Pestle and Mortar
- Skewers / Potaotes for Gryos
Ingredients
Chicken
- 1 Fork & Twist Easy Greek Chicken Gyros find full recipe: http://forkandtwist.com/easy-greek-chicken-gyros/
Chilli Sauce
- 1-2 Red Chillis, diced Remove seeds if you are sensitive to heat
- 2 Medium Salad tomatoes, diced
- 1 Small onion, diced
- 2 Garlic cloves, roughly chopped can be minced
- 1 tbsp Olive oil
- 1 tsp Onion Powder optional
- 1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper optional
- 1 tsp Paprika
- 1 tsp Sugar any sugar will suffice
- 150 ml Water
Yoghurt
- 100 g Greek Yoghurt if thick like FAGE, then water down with 1-2 tbsp of water. Consistency should be like natural yoghurt
- 1 tbsp Fresh Lime Juice
- 1 tsp Fresh chopped mint
- 1 tsp Fresh chopped parsley optional
Pickled Onions
- 1 Large Red Onion, halved and sliced thin
- 1/2 Lemon, juiced and seeds removed
- 1 tsp Salt
Serving
- 4 Pitta Breads
- 1 Handful Fresh chopped herbs parsely and chives are our go too
Instructions
Chicken
- Use the Easy Greek Chicken Gyros recipe. Prepare the chicken first.When the chicken goes into the oven, proceed to make the rest of the kebab components. You have 1 hour from here until the chicken is cooked.
Onions
- Get the red onion, peel, half it, and with each half cut into thin slices.
- Place the onion slices into some tupperware, squeeze over the lemon half. Be careful to remove any pips/seeds.
- Sprikle with salt, place the lid on and shake well. Let it sit and pickle until ready for serving.
Chilli Sauce
- Slice and dice the chilli(s), tomatoes and onion.
- In a pestle and mortar, add chopped garlic and a half teaspoon of oil. Grind to a paste. (Use a garlic mincer if you don't have this).Add the onion powder, paprika and cayene pepper. Mix into a paste. Add a touch more oil if needed to help the paste on its way.
- Get a saucepan on a medium/low heat. Add a the Olive Oil and then the onion and the chilli. Sweat down until soft (10 mintues or so). Do not brown. If it browns your heat is too high, and/or you don't have enough oil. So add a splash more oil and turn the heat down slightly.
- Once soft, add the tomatoes and cook for a further 5 minutes until turned to mush.
- Add the garlic paste from the pestle and mortar to the pan. Add the sugar too. Stir to combine and let this cook for a couple minutes to enhance the garlic and spices and dissolve the sugar.
- Add the water to the pan, stir well and turn up the heat and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 10 minutes or until the sauce has reduced by about half.
- Once reduced, take off the heat. Use a blender, either hand held or worktop based, to blender to a smooth-ish sauce. Pulse the blender on and off if you want it to have more texture. Stop when you have reached your desired texture (stop and taste to see if it is). Best to have some texture to it (i.e. not fully smooth).
- Add the chilli sauce to some tupperware (glass if possible, to avoid tomato stains) and re-taste. Add salt to season if needed. Re-taste. Repeat until properly seasoned.
Yoghurt
- Weigh out 100g of yoghurt, ensure it is pourable. If it's too thick add a tbsp of water and mix - keep doing this until it's the right pourable consistency.
- Add the lime juice, herbs and a little pinch of salt and mix.
- Taste. Check seasoning and lime flavour. Add more lime if you can't taste it of get a "zing". It should not be salty, but should have the flavour of each component.
Constructing the kebab
- At this stage we are expecting the chicken to be cooked and sliced.
- Lightly warm the pitta - either on a George Forman style grill or a quick dry fry in a pan on each side. They should become warm but not crispy, don't leave them too long. 10-15 seconds will do.
- Open the warm pitta by cutting a long slit across the top
- Using some tongs, place a layer of chicken in the bottom. Add a small layer of the pickled onions. Add some chilli sauce and yoghurt - not too much, but equal amounts. Re-do these steps at least one more time until the pitta is fully loaded! Ensure the top is drizzled with chilli sauce and yoghurt and add some more herbs if using. Repeat this for each pitta and serve right away!
Notes
- This recipe does not give the steps for the Gyros. The link is found in the ingredients list.
- Use the cooking time of the gyros to make the onions, chilli sauce and yoghurt - in that order.
- The cooking time list does not include the marinating of the chicken for the gyros, but does include the cooking time.
- Feel free to use any chicken you have here, be it left over chicken, fork and twist gyros or anything else! if the chicken is already cooked it would take literally 20 minutes to make these from start to finish.
- Feel free to add more toppings like salad leaves, red cabbage or crispy onions etc..
- Layer up the kebab to ensure all bites get a bit of everything.
- Ensure you taste each component. Make sure the chilli is spicy enough and the yoghurt is zingy enough. Add more cayenne or fresh chilli to the sauce to make it spicier or add more lime to the yoghurt to make it more zingy.
