The past few years I have really taken up the hobby of cooking. Not only has it increased the quality of my health and saved me money, but I honestly love reverse engineering recipes. The one dish over the past few years that has eluded me has been gyro meat. Gyro meat is mix of ground lamb and ground beef. It is ground very fine, packed together with spices and slowly cooked on a vertical broiler. Some of these gyro cookers cost over $1,000. Yeah, I’ve priced them.
That is how much I love gyro meat.
You can follow Alton Brown’s recipe for baked gyro and I have. However, it does require a kick ass food processor. Mine is so ghetto, I don’t think it could cut through cotton candy at this point.
For the past few years I haven’t tackled this problem head on. When I do go out to eat, I mostly go to Greek restaurants to get my gyro meat fix. Until recently this didn’t bother me. But I’ve started to notice the quality around Seattle is dropping and the portions are getting smaller. Plus I got a suspicion that some might be using vegetable oil in their sauces. In January, I left one of the Greek places in the University District extremely disappointed in the quality of their gyro salad – plus I left still hungry.
Now I was motivated to solve the gyro riddle. That is when I got the idea to replace the spices in the meat and make meatballs. It wouldn’t have the same texture, but it would share a lot of the taste. Plus I could source higher quality grass pasture meat and save money. Game on!
Recipe: Gyro Meatballs
Summary: Gyro flavored meatballs. Add them to a pita or a salad.
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound ground beef
- 1/2 pound ground lamb
- 1 egg
- 1/4 onion, diced, dried in paper towel
- 1/2 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1/2 – 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1/2 -1 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 -1 teaspoon marjoram
- 1/2 -1 teaspoon ground rosemary
- 1/2 -1 teaspoon thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 390 degrees.
- Mix every ingredient above together. Mix it up real good.
- Make meatballs
- Bake for 20 minutes
Quick notes
Bread is evil, so I add my Gyro Meatballs to salad. To compliment the salad, make a nice Tzatziki Sauce. Feta cheese and tomatoes too!
Preparation time: 15 minute(s)
Cooking time: 20 minute(s)
Culinary tradition: Greek
Conclusion
The texture for the meatballs is nothing like gyro meat, but the flavor matches. This will absolutely work for me. This dish is going into my rotation. At least until the day that own my own gyro broiler. 
I love the sound of your Gyro Meatballs, and thanks for the shout out for my Tzatziki sauce!
@Kalyn – I loved your sauce recipe. Super easy to make too!
Nice, will try it. I love the middle eastern, north african spice mixes
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