First of all, tremendous thanks to all of you that voted for me and sent me into the finals! It was my first throwdown and it was SO much fun to participate, and then to be honored with your votes was a great feeling!
My spin on the fatty was a gyro. Traditionally, a gyro uses either ground lamb or a mixture of lamb and beef. I wasn't too terribly sure how that would behave in the smoker, so I went with a 50/50 mix of regular Jimmy Dean sausage and ground lamb just to remain a little more in my comfort zone. Then I threw in a bunch of "gyro herbs" which was something like ground rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram, onion, and garlic. If I remember correctly, it was a tablespoon of each.
I mixed this as best as I could, but wasn't too worried about it because it would be pureed later.
Gyro meat is VERY processed, so into the food processor it went!
This was 2 pounds of meat, so I split it into two batches of 1 pound each.
Thus it begins....
Sticking with the Greek theme, I used feta cheese as the filler.
I rolled it up and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours for easy management.
Here is where it got really interesting. Wanting to do something even more interesting, I used LAMB BACON! I recently found a "foodie" shop called Dutch's Larder that carries some interesting/high end meat. If you're in Cincinnati, check them out! https://www.facebook.com/DutchsLarder
This stuff is ridiculously tasty! It's a little skinny and short, and somewhat fragile to work with, but very much worth it.
The weave was hard to accomplish because lamb bacon breaks easily, but I think I did a decent job.
All ready!
Three hours later it was ready!
I plated it on a pita, along with fresh heirloom tomatoes, fresh onion, and some homemade tzatziki sauce that I found that day on the internet.
Once again, thanks for the votes! It was awesome!
My spin on the fatty was a gyro. Traditionally, a gyro uses either ground lamb or a mixture of lamb and beef. I wasn't too terribly sure how that would behave in the smoker, so I went with a 50/50 mix of regular Jimmy Dean sausage and ground lamb just to remain a little more in my comfort zone. Then I threw in a bunch of "gyro herbs" which was something like ground rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram, onion, and garlic. If I remember correctly, it was a tablespoon of each.
I mixed this as best as I could, but wasn't too worried about it because it would be pureed later.
Gyro meat is VERY processed, so into the food processor it went!
This was 2 pounds of meat, so I split it into two batches of 1 pound each.
Thus it begins....
Sticking with the Greek theme, I used feta cheese as the filler.
I rolled it up and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours for easy management.
Here is where it got really interesting. Wanting to do something even more interesting, I used LAMB BACON! I recently found a "foodie" shop called Dutch's Larder that carries some interesting/high end meat. If you're in Cincinnati, check them out! https://www.facebook.com/DutchsLarder
This stuff is ridiculously tasty! It's a little skinny and short, and somewhat fragile to work with, but very much worth it.
The weave was hard to accomplish because lamb bacon breaks easily, but I think I did a decent job.
All ready!
Three hours later it was ready!
I plated it on a pita, along with fresh heirloom tomatoes, fresh onion, and some homemade tzatziki sauce that I found that day on the internet.
Once again, thanks for the votes! It was awesome!
