Gyro Greek Sandwich

Gyro (yee-roh) is a Greek sandwich specialty. It is typically made of pork meat rolled into a large piece of flatbread or pita. Other versions made with beef, lamb, chicken, and sometimes turkey, are adaptations of the Turkish "Döner Kebap" or "Shawarma", which is a popular fast food across the Middle East and NEVER made with pork. Inside the pita, salad, pickles, hummus and even French fries are added.


I am sending this to WIN S365s SANDWICH CONTEST!

	Gyro Seasoning
400 g Chicken thighs or breast, boneless and skinless 6-8 Homemade pita, (or Turkish pide) 1/2 cup Tzatziki angiesrecipes Salad mix (Tomato, cucumber, onion, etc.)	1 tsp Sweet paprikaangiesrecipes 1 tsp Salt 1 tsp Cumin angiesrecipes 1 tsp Garlic powderangiesrecipes 1 tsp Oregano angiesrecipes 1 tsp Basil angiesrecipes(optional) 1 tsp Black pepper (optional) 1/2 tsp Marjoram angiesrecipes(optional) 1/2 tsp Parsley angiesrecipes(optional) 1/3 tsp Chilli powderangiesrecipes(optional)

1. In a small bowl combine all the ingredients of the gyro mix
   
   . Slice the chicken of the grain and add in the seasoning mix. Rub it into the meat with your hands. Cover with a plastic wrap and chill overnight or at least 3 hours.
   
   
2. Remove meat from the refrigerator and grill in a roasting pan in the oven until crispy. Or dry fry (without any oil) in a non-stick skillet until browned and slightly crisp.
   
   
3. Slice the pita from the top open to create a pocket. If it is a long oval pita, then slice each pita open in half so that it forms 2 small pockets. Gently open the pocket and fill with the tzatziki, salad and meat.

Chickpea Butternut Pumpkin Patties

Chickpeas have a delicious nutty taste and buttery texture. Pumpkins are naturally low in calories and fat, rich in vitamin A and an excellent source of fiber. The match of chickpeas and pumpkins, for me, is the match made in heaven.

Not only are they delicious, healthy, and loaded with nutrients, but they could also be used to make a variety of healthier holiday or daily treats. These patties are very easy to make and bursting with flavours.

• 400 g Butternut pumpkin puree©angiesrecipes
  
  
• 150 g Chickpea puree
  
  
• 350 g Glutinous rice flour
  
  
• 25 g Honey
  
  
• 450 g Poppy paste©angiesrecipes
  
  
• Some corn oil

1. Place butternut pumpkin puree, chickepea puree, glutinous rice flour and honey in a bowl. Mix with your hand until you have a smooth dough. Add more glutinous rice flour if needed.
   
   
2. Divide it into 35 portions, each about 26 grams. Shape each into a ball. Divide the poppy paste into 35 portions too. Roll each pumpkin dough into a round, fill the center with poppy paste, and then seal to enclose the filling. Lightly press it down to flatten the ball.
   
   
3. Heat up a skillet with some corn oil and pan fry patties over the low-medium heat until golden brown.

Mamgu's sausage and cabbage hotpot

(Looks unpromising, but this is actually nice)

I've promised before not to go on about my mother in that tedious way that a lot of people do when they talk about food. I'm doubly not going to because my mother is Welsh. And to talk about her is to talk about where she comes from, and with it comes all that bogus teary nostalgia of the person who willingly fled their birth country years ago for a better life, barely to return, only to get all wistful about not returning.

There is a moment in Black Books when the Irish Bernard Black, now living in London and drunk, says to a 5 year old "Let me tell you about the old country, son. The songs! The songs! They'd... melt your face." That sums it up for me.

Having said all that, my mother did used to feed us so cheaply, despite my Dad earning a eyesmacking wack as some kind of City suit, on food so remeniscent of what you might get on a very dark farm in wartime Wales, that it's worth remarking on. The BSE crisis was paydirt for my mother, as no-one was buying beef on the bone, the price plummeted and we ate like kings until everyone else caught on that BSE isn't really a thing and then the price went up again. And so we went back to sausage and cabbage hotpot.

Which, it turns out, is absolutely delicious. I always dreaded it when I was a teenager, because I didn't have any inkling of how bad food could be in the real world when you have to buy it and cook it yourself. I went back home recently because my husband is away and I'm scared of the dark and get night terrors, like Kingsley Amis, and had this. I saw it and thought "Oh boring" but then tasted it and thought "Oh my God. How could I not have realised that this was delicious?" Then I became anxious and fearful at the thought of raising a child, which might become a similarly vile and ungrateful teenager as I am must have been.

Anyway honestly honestly, no really listen to me, this is a nice thing. It is. It's also a piece of piss. I can't explain how some cabbage leaves and skinned sausages can become something so rich and complex in the oven but it works. It's not a Welsh thing - Welsh food is exclusively leeks and stringy old mutton - just something cheap my mother found in a cookbook.

I gave it to my husband last night and I could tell he was dreading it from the sheer surprise in his voice when he took a mouthful and went "My word!". Like Y blydi Sais** he is.


Mamgu's* Sausage and Cabbage hotpot

1 savoy cabbage

however many sausages you want - probably 2 for girls and 3 for boys - the more expensive and rustic the better. my mother used to get them on special offer because of imminent sell-by dates
salt
pepper
butter

Pre-heat the oven to 150C

1 Blanch the cabbage leaves in boiling, salted water for 5 minutes. What you are going to do is layer the cabbage and the sausage together and you need about 2-3 cabbage leaves per layer.

2 Meanwhile skin the sausages. Yes, you must do this.

3 Butter a casserole dish and then start with a layer of cabbage leaves. Add a dot of butter, salt and pepper and 2 or 3 sausages.

4 Continue to layer sausage and cabbage, seasoning each layer with salt, pepper and butter. Go easy on the butter though because too much can be a bit vomity.

5 Finish with a layer of cabbage and then give a foil hat, then put the lid on and put in the oven for 2 hours at least. 2.5 hours ideally.

Eat with red camargue rice (or just dirt scooped up from the garden with your gnarled peasant fingers) and ketchup. Yeh-chid dah!***



* pronounced "Mam-gee", meaning grandmother
**the bloody Englishman
*** Cheers! (Obviously)

Mushroom Tagliatelle with Argan Oil and Parmesan

Argan oil, believed to be one of the rarest oils in the world, is a robust, nutty oil made from the nuts of the argan tree endemic to Southwestern Morocco. Traditionally in Morocco, argan oil is used in tajines, couscous, salads, grilled tomatoes and other Moroccan dishes. It is valued for its nutritive, cosmetic and numerous medicinal properties.



This oil is naturally high in vitamin E and essential fatty acids, making it an excellent dietary supplement. It is also very good for the skin; vitamin E can help smooth cracked hands, knees, and elbows while nourishing the skin, and essential fatty acids can promote healthy skin as well. These benefits have made argan oil popular in cosmetics for centuries in Morocco and beyond, and small vials of the costly oil are often on offer at high-end cosmetic stores.

• 250 g Crimini mushroom or portobello, thickly sliced
  
  
• 1-2 clove Garlic, sliced
  
  
• 150 ml Vegetable stock
  
  
• 180 g Tagliatelle
  
  
• 1 tbsp Parsley, chopped
  
  
• 1 tbsp Lemon rind, finely zested
  
  
• 1 tbsp Argan oil to serve
  
  
• Grated Parmesan to serve

1. Put the sliced mushrooms, garlic and vegetable stock into a skillet, bring to the boil and simmer for until the liquid has nearly all evaporated and the mushrooms are soft, about 5 minutes.
   
   
2. Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta according to pack instructions. Drain and toss with the mushrooms, parsley and lemon zest. Season to taste and drizzle the argan oil over and serve with grated Parmesan.

Focaccia with Grapes / Schiacciata con l'Uva

"Schiacciata con l'Uva" is a traditional flatbread made in Tuscany-what everyone else in Italy calls "Focaccia", in the autumn. Nicely golden and crisp on the outside, laid with juicy sweet red grapes and sprinkled with brown sugar, this focaccia tastes wonderfully delicious with a glass of Chianti! Don't you love its rustic look!

Recipe Sources:

dajana-bakerscorner

epicurious

kingarthurflour

• 300 ml Water, lukewarm
  
  
• 30 g Honey
  
  
• 400 g Spelt flour #1050©angiesrecipes
  
  
• 1/2 tsp Salt
  
  
• 7 g Instant dry yeast
  
  
• 500 g Seedless red grapes
  
  
• Extra virgin olive oil
  
  
• 50 g brown sugar
  
  

1. Place water, flour, caster sugar, salt and instant dry yeast in the order they are listed into the pan of your bread machine, program the machine for dough, and press "Start".
   
   
2. While the dough is rising, rinse and dry the grapes. When dough cycle is complete remove the dough from machine. Take 2/3 of the dough and roll it out thin on a baking paper greased with olive oil. Place 2/3 of the grapes on the dough and sprinkle with 30 grams of brown sugar.
   
   
3. Roll out the remaining dough and cover the bottom sheet with the grapes on it. Lift the edges of the bottom sheet over the upper one and press lightly to join them. Move the focaccia together with the baking paper to a baking tray. Brush the surface with oil, place the remaining grapes on top and sprinkle with the remaining 20 grams of brown sugar.
   
   
4. Bake the focaccia in an oven preheated to190C/375F for 25 to 30 minutes utill it is golden brown. Serve it warm with a glass or two Chianti.

Potato latkes

It's hell being me. I want you to know that. Hell. When I read all those identity lit books, you know: White Teeth, Small Island, Everything Is Illuminated, Icarus Girl, all that jazz, I laugh bitterly. Ha! They know nothing about identity crisis. Not one thing.

They can try growing up in Hampstead Garden Suburb in the Eighties, being called Esther, surrounded by Jewish neighbours, sent to a school with such a high intake of Jewish girls that on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah we got to watch videos in all our classes because attendance dropped to 15%, be handed a Learn Hebrew book by their very confused father, but throughout all this being also told that they are a Protestant and not at all Jewish, then going to Westminster school and Bristol University only to be stunned and a bit frightened to find out that NOT ONLY is everyone in the world not Jewish, some people will say mean things right to your face about how Hampstead Garden Suburb is full of Jews and how a charity collection at Golders Green station "wouldn't have much luck"... well, then and only then, can these whiney bastards come crying to me about not knowing who they are.

I can never be a Jew because I am a Protestant, despite what my bookish, vaguely "foreign"-looking father might fervently wish, (to give him access to an intellectual hinterland that would explain who he is so neatly). I am a goy, a shiksa. I am not chosen. All my childhood friends were, oh yeah, plenty of identity sloshing around for them. But not for me. Not. ME.

Despite the confusing aspect of my upbringing, maybe it's a good thing I'm not Jewish. As far as I can tell, to be Jewish is to suffer, and God only knows I suffer enough what with my wonky teeth and my weak veins and my chronic heartburn. There's only so much more that I could take.

But my friend Adam really is Jewish. Through and through. If he were a dog and there was a religious section in Crufts, he would win it. He is kosher! One hardly ever meets anyone kosher because it makes socialising with not Jewish people tricky; to be kosher means you cannot eat meat which, (among other things), hasn't been purchased from a kosher butcher. And most people can't do that because all the kosher butchers in London are in Golders Green, which is, let me tell you, the middle of nowhere.

Whenever my friend Adam goes to friends houses for dinner he can only eat the vegetables. So I thought it would be nice to throw him a Friday night supper with proper actual meat and everything.

Only I am going to have to practice for this little performance because, despite my serious identity confusion, I don't know anything about kosher cooking. My plan is to make a dinner of chopped liver and potato latkes to start, cholent (which is a kind of sticky stew made with beans and barley that my husband knows how to make) and then a flourless chocolate cake. But now I'm worried that this is just like a hilarious cliche spoof Jewish dinner, like having a Welsh person round and feeding him three courses of leeks. (My mother is Welsh, just to confuse matters. But she keeps it quiet.)

The element that most troubles me is the potato latkes, which are a kind of hash brown. Frying potato from raw is incredibly hard, because what potato likes to do most is go very soggy and then  !!suddenly burn!!

I took to Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food, which has a recipe for latkes, obviously, and she said they are easy, which they absolutely are not. I had to adapt the recipe as I went to save them from sheer disaster.

Anyway, here we go, potato latkes:

Makes about six.

5 large-ish new potatoes, or any waxy potato will do
1 medium shallot
salt
1 egg
oil for frying NOT olive oil - groundnut or peanut
1/2 tablespoon of self-raising flour

1 Peel and grate the potatoes on the big-hole gratey bit of your cheese grater. Put the strips in a colander and rinse them very well in cold water to get rid of the starch, which apparently does unholy things if left to run riot. Then press an appropriate-sized bowl on top of them and squeeze and squeeze until you've got as much water out of them as you can. Alternatively, you can bunch the potato strips in a tea towel and swing them round your head to dry. I haven't done this, but I hear it works

2 Add to the potato strips the onion, grated on the smallest gratey-thing of your cheese grater

3 Whisk one egg with 2 good pinches of salt, and toss the potato strips in it until they're all coated. Sprinkle over the flour and mix in. Claudia Roden says that adding flour makes the latkes taste less nice but she can get bent because a) it does nothing to the flavour and b) there's no way in hell you can get your potato strips to stick together in the pan if you haven't added a bit of flour.

4 Heat about three tablespoonfuls of oil in a pan until very hot. Scoop about one tablespoonful into your hand and shape is as best you can into a flattish oval shape. The mixture will still be very soggy and gross, so squash as much liquid as you can out of it into the bowl and then lower into the pan, turning the heat down as you do to about half its maximum setting.

5 Cook these for a while, about 8 minutes, four on each side. Maybe even ten. Don't let the pan get dry because your latkes will burn; keep topping up with oil and they ought to go golden brown

The first two of these you do will be a disaster and you'll want to cry and smash things and take my name in vain. The next two will be better and by the last ones you do, you'll have nailed it. They ought to be crispy and crunchy on the outside and melty in the middle. Yum yum. Eat hot, with more salt and sour cream if you like. You can also add to the mixture, if you're feeling rakish and smart, ground black pepper and parsley.

Peach Nougat Spelt Cake

A slightly dense, moist butter cake with ripe, fresh, and juicy peaches and rich, gooey nougat atop makes a truly succulent late-summer delight with a glass of sparkling wine.

Batter	Topping
250 g Spelt #630 flour©angiesrecipes 2 tsp Baking powder 100 g Sugar 2 Eggs 150 g Butter, softened 6 tbsp Milk	6 Fresh peaches©angiesrecipes, peeled, halved and pitted 200 g Nougat Some raspberry jam Some pistachio, chopped

1. Peel and halve the peaches. Gently fan out the top of halves whilst still keeping them all together. Line a 30x.33cm baking tray with paper. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Place the nougat in a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until it is melted and smooth.
   
   
2. Whisk the spelt flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Add in sugar, eggs, butter and milk. Beat briefly with a hand mixer on slow speed, then increase the speed to high and beat for 2 minutes until a smooth dough forms.
   
   
3. Press the dough evenly onto the prepared tray. Arrange the peach halves, fanned-out side up, in 4 lines, setting them 1 inch apart and pressing each gently into the dough. Spoon the melted nougat to fill the gaps between lines.
   
   
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes. Strain the raspberry jam through a fine sieve into a bowl. Remove the cake and cool on the wire rack. Brush the peach halves with the jam while it’s still warm, and scatter the chopped pistachio on the nougat. Slice the cake and serve.

Thank you, kitchen flavours and alwayswinner786, for passing the awards to me.

Kitchen Flavours	Tips for Delicious and Healthy Cooking