How to make homemade chicken gyros! This was a really delicious recipe including making our own custom rotisserie with bamboo skewers to go in the oven. A gyro or gyros is a Greek dish made from meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie. A bit like shawarma or tacos al pastor, it is derived from the lamb-based doner kebab. It can be most meats – pork, lamb, chicken etc. It is usually served wrapped or stuffed in a pita, along with ingredients such as tomato, onion, sauces like tzatziki, ketchup and mustard and french fries. I didn’t add fries today as it was more about the theory of getting the chicken right, but really, just make it your own.
Alright, first thing to do here is to make the marinade – so simply dump all of the marinade ingredients together in a mixing bowl and stir well. It might separate a little bit while you do the next step but don’t worry, a little stir just before moving on will be fine.
Meanwhile take the chicken thighs, unravel them if necessary and bash lightly with a rolling pin putting the chicken between cling film. You should end up with neatly bashed chicken thighs. Put all of the chicken into the mixing bowl and coat with the marinade, cover and chill for an hour.
Whilst that’s happening you can make your tzatziki sauce, simple add all the ingredients together in a bowl, mix well, cover and keep in the fridge.
When the chicken is ready to be marinated, push a halved onion through the skewers to act as a base and skewer the chicken onto the bamboo sticks. Keep adding them until you have a nice tower of chicken. This could move around a bit during cooking so a snug pan works well or ideally if you have one of the roasting tins with a spike base, that would be amazing.
With an oven pre-heated to 180fan/200c cook the chicken for 2 hours, rotating from time to time and making sure it doesn’t topple over!
Remove from the oven and carve up, serving in your warmed pitta with the tzatziki sauce, onions and tomatoes.