Chicken Gyros

Well then. Christmas is over. And after Christmas you don’t feel like doing anything. I certainly don’t. Least of all thinking about food. Hmm. Still thinking about it, though.

Luckily Kryfka has given us some cocktail recipes, so we can take our minds off food and practise our skills before New Year’s Eve. Actually, I have to say we were bang on the money with those cocktails. Why? Imagine this: at Christmas Eve dinner the conversation turned to cocktails. What’s more, the drinks started flowing. Sadly they weren’t from one of my recipes (or rather Kryfka’s), and I have no idea where the cocktail idea came from (dinner was at my aunt and uncle’s), but a quite respectable margarita appeared on the table. Unfortunately I was on “Krzyś” duty (that’s the one who drives so the others don’t have to), so all I could do was look on longingly.

I don’t know how well that fits in with Christmas tradition, but remember the film “Rozmowy kontrolowane”? Fine by me.

As for today’s recipe, I made it in a hurry and I’m writing it in a hurry. So let’s get to it. A very simple dish, perhaps not exactly tailor-made for today, the occasion just past or the one coming up. The idea was to make something quickly, more or less from what was still in the house. I did go to the shop today, but when I saw the queue I admitted defeat.

Nothing fancy, quite spicy, but the household gave this chicken gyros good marks. It’s edible. And if I have to sum up the year somehow, as everyone seems to be doing these days, a simple dish with a bit of a sting fits the bill nicely. Glad the year’s over.

At a glance:

Preparation time: 25 minutes

Serves: 3 people

How many calories? Loads. Probably 2013

Ingredients for a thoroughly Polish gyros:

• two large chicken breasts (the full set from one bird)
• 4 medium white onions
• two boil-in-bag sachets of rice
• 4 cloves of garlic
• gyros seasoning (I had Kamis)
• dried herbes de Provence
• whole mixed peppercorns
• olive oil
• 12% fat sour cream (a larger tub)
• ground hot paprika
• ground black pepper

Method (probably the last one of 2013):

Lots of onions because I’m summing up a pretty rough year ’13. Pah. I’m superstitious about thirteens 😉

The finished dish is basically made up of three parts: the rice, the meat and the dip (or should that be “dipping sauce”?). I started with the meat, which I think tastes better if you marinate it for two hours in the fridge, but you can easily skip that step if you’re in a hurry.

I washed the chicken, removed the bones and cut it into very thin but large pieces. I sprinkled over half the gyros seasoning and a little salt, sliced one white onion into very thin rings and added it to the meat, mixed everything thoroughly and put it in the fridge.

While the meat was still in the fridge, I cooked the rice. Then I got to work on the meat. I got the olive oil good and hot in a large frying pan and tipped in the marinated chicken and onion. I mixed it really well. While the meat was frying I stirred it frequently and spent the moments in between slicing the rest of the onions. Once they were all sliced into thin rings, I added 3/4 of them to the meat. I gave it a stir and started on the dip.

I poured the sour cream into a bowl (almost the whole of one of those larger tubs), pressed in the garlic, added a little salt, ground hot paprika, herbes de Provence and ground black pepper, then a few drops of olive oil, and mixed thoroughly. I put it in the fridge.

By then the onions in the pan were very soft, so I let them fry a little longer and added the rest of the gyros seasoning, the mixed peppercorns I’d crushed with my hands and the last of the onions (these mustn’t get quite so soft: what’s a gyros without a little crunchy onion?). I mixed everything and fried it for about 2 minutes, stirring. That’s pretty much it. I serve it in a deep plate with a modest helping of rice on the bottom, meat on top of the rice and 2–3 tablespoons of dip over the lot. Not bad, but like 2013, it could probably have been better 🙂 Have a delicious 2014!