Greek Gyros-spiced lamb with pumpkin rice.

Hello all.

It's time for something more traditional.

Greek gyros is meat that has spices infused to it. Usually it's set up on a rotating vertical spit and adjusting the heat from the broiler and the amount of fat in the meat is used to control how juicy the gyro is. It is usually sliced off and placed in pita with tzatziki and salad. It's similar to shawarma and donairs.

In this case, we do not have a rotating spit, so we made gyro cakes out of lamb meat. Foregoing with the tradition though, we had it with some pumpkin rice. Because hey, pumpkins are plentiful here so why not take advantage of their benefits?

And so, here is the recipe!

Ingredients (enough for 2 people, plus seconds)

• 1 kilo lamb minced meat
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp cinammon
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 2 tsp parsley powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp oregano

Looks simple, right? The only thing you need to do is to mix the lamb minced meat (or any meat of your choice) with the spices above. And if you think there's another spice that would go, don't be afraid to add it!

Form it into lamb cakes and grill it or fry it. We put it in a skillet on very low fire and let it cook.
That was actually the most time consuming part. The actual cooking time was the worst, because you can smell the delicious gyro cooking but you know it's not done yet.

Pumpkin rice

• 2 cups chopped pumpkin (we used butternut squash)
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 tbsp soy sauce 
• 1 cup chopped asparagus
• 1 cup red bell pepper - chopped
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1tsp cinammon
• 1tsp grated fresh ginger
• 1 cup rice (your choice - we used basmatti)
• 1/2 water

We put all the ingredients in the slow cooker from the morning and left it to cook 4-5 hours until we ate.
It was really good!!

Give it a try guys!

I'll also post a recipe on how to make some good tzatziki and not that sour cream crap you find in stores.

Let me know what you think :)