The Lion Or The Lamb

"Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?"

--from The Lamb by William
Blake

March is here. I really don't know if it came in like a lion or a lamb because our weather has been less than predictable (sunny/tornados/sunny/hail/sunny/light frost) but for sure, Spring is on its way. I can feel it. I can see it. The only way to celebrate is to get some lamb and do it up right. The availability of lamb this time of year heralds 3 things:

1. the rising of Jesus Christ
2. the rising of perennials
3. the rising of hot cross buns on the kitchen counter or in the oven
   
   

Croci (or crocuses) I found in my yard.

YEER-oh. Not GY-roh. You get in trouble if you pronounce it the wrong way.

Sadly, I've never been to Greece. I've only gone by it in a boat on the way to Italy. We waved at the hills and crests of the coastline as we tipped back ouzo in celebration of the times we would have had on the island.

I've never made a gyro. I've only watched the guys at my favorite Greek restaurant slice it off the spit, slap it on a pita and hand it to me in a grease-coated wax paper cone. I've made souvlaki, baklava (with no pistachios or walnuts; roasted soy nuts are pretty good!), dolmades, moussaka, and gigantes beans...but no gyros.

The real crowning glory of a gyro is the tzatziki sauce. If you've got good sauce, then you've got good eats. It's a yogurt-cucumber sauce that is sometimes called a tarator sauce (tarator is more watery and is a soup, really).

Lamb Gyro Serves 2 or 3 (or one very hungry person)

Whenever you are making a forcemeat like this, it behooves you to take a bit aside and cook it in a pan to taste test for seasonings. Do this now.

After proper seasoning, press mixture into the bottom of a loaf pan, pie plate, or oven-proof skillet. Cover with foil and place a heavy bottomed pot, brick, stone, or old dried-up beans (that you will never use) on the foil to weigh down the meat.

Ground lamb mixture pressed into the cast-iron skillet

Essentially, you will be pressing out most of the moisture from the lamb.

Place in oven for 20 minutes for medium/well-done.

If you like your meat varying degrees of doneness, cook it for less than 20 minutes. Twenty minutes is only a guideline, of course.

I sliced up my circle of lamb into strips to resemble to street gyros.

Tzatziki sauce

8 ounces Fage Total 0% Greek yogurt

1 medium English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped

Reserved onion/garlic mixture

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 tsp red wine vinegar

5 to 6 mint leaves, minced (or chiffonade for presentation purposes)

Salt and pepper to taste

Place the chopped cucumber in a tea towel and squeeze to remove the liquid; discard liquid.

Pulverized cucumber displayed on a tea towel (before the big squeeze)

In a bowl, combine the yogurt, cucumber, salt, garlic, vinegar, and mint. Let chill until lamb is done. Serve as a sauce for gyros. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to a week.

Me inspecting the tzatziki. I approve!

Mmmm...tzatziki sauce.

Cut pieces of lamb for the gyro

A nice chiffonade of romaine lettuce. Very mediterranean.




Bad news: I was so hungry I didn't take a pic of my gyro before shoveling it in my mouth.

Good news: It was great! Next time I think I'll grind my own lamb to make the texture smoother. I hope I don't grind it so much that it becomes a mushy mess.