Greek Style Lamb Yiros

I LOOOOVVVEEEEEE Yiros! I thought it was time I made some of my own as I never really get to them much as we don't buy take away that often.

Very easy and delicious. Grace (4 yrs old) LOVED it. I was surprised, she doesn't normally like lamb, or lettuce but she gobbled it up and asked to have it the night after too :) The lettuce was grown in our own veggie patch, as well as some of the herbs that I put in the marinade.

What you will need: (for 4 people)

1 tomato sliced

2 cups lettuce sliced

1/2 red onion sliced

Yiros bread

Lamb marinade

500 gms lamb (I used leg steaks which are nice and tender and have alot of meat. You could use back strap, or use left over roast lamb, or just use plain old lamb chops and just cut the meat off) I cut my lamb into strips, you could do strips or chunks.

3-4 garlic cloves crushed or finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon sumac (dry you can get it in the herb section)

1 teaspoon thyme (fresh or dry)

1 teaspoon oregano (fresh or dry)

1 teaspoon rosemary

1 teaspoon all spice

juice and rind of 1 lemon

salt

pepper

3 tablespoons olive oil

Yogurt (tzatziki)

Greek Stlye yogurt (I used a 200 ml tub but that was way too much, unless you want to use it as a dip the next day too) so perhaps only 100ml for just the yiros

1/2 continental cucumber (around a cup) peeled, and de-seed, then grated.

juice of 1 lemon

2 garlic cloves (crushed or finely chopped)

salt

pepper

parsely (1 tablespoon)

optional is mint or oregano

Method

1. Cut lamb and herbs for the marinade and place all of those ingredients into a air tight container and place in the fridge (preferbly for atleast 4 or 5 hours so you can really get the taste).

2. Place the yogurt, lemon juice, herbs, cucumber into a bowl and stir around, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for the same amount of time as the lamb. (taste to see if you want to add more of anything, your tastes will be different to ours).

3.Heat pan or grill and cook lamb until its cooked to your liking (some like it rare, medium etc).

4. Slice the salad ingredients.

5. Place yiros bread in warm oven wrapped in foil for a few minutes or in the microwave (without foil!!).

6. Once lamb is cooked you can assemble your yiros. No real art to it, whatever takes your fancy. We put some lettuce, tomato and onion down, lamb on top and the yogurt and then wrapped and enjoyed :)

Serve with fries or garlic bread

Mango chutney with Lamb

I have this recipe book that I got from the supermarket, one of those "quick meal" books and they had a mango chutney on grilled lamb chops. Super idea I thought.

There is a lovely mando chutney made by Sharwood's that I have used before. So I brushed that onto the lamb chops and grilled them on the bbq grill. (I don't have a pic because my battery was flat the night I cooked).

Then I was planning on making a mango salad but fresh mango's were $8!! So I bought a tin of mangos and used half of the tin. I placed it in a pan, with 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder and warmed that up so it was like a paste with small chunks of mango.

Once the chops were cooked I placed them on the plate and put the mango paste I had made on top.

The kids didn't eat it (they don't really eat lamb) but hubby and I loved it. I don't like hot curry or anything so for me the flavour was just right but Hubby would of preferred a little more curry powder. So taste it as you go and get it right for your taste.

Lamb Chops (For Jessica)

Here is the lamb chops that we use. We prefer the forequarter chop as it's bigger and cheaper than the small "chump" chops that they call them. You can also get the backstrap of lamb which is lovely but VERY expensive. We also have lamb roast of which I have posted a blog about a few months ago.

I cook them on the inside grill. I use a seasoning I get from the grocery store that a Greek family makes. It has various herbs, spices, some flour, chicken stock etc. Its a dry seasoning. Its YUMMY :) I have also marinated with Emglish Mustard, red wine vinegar and parsely. Rosemary and lamb were made to go together so sometimes I just put sprigs of rosemary on the chops too. And rosemary, garlic and red wine is devine on the roast lamb.

I like my lamb almost well done, so if its slight pink, I take it off and let it rest. You can eat it rare/medium too.

Roast Lamb

So first of all get yourself these things

Leg of lamb you can use a shoulder too (I usually use 1kg leg for 4 people, ask your butcher how much more you might need).

3-4 stalks of rosemary

sea salt and freshly ground cracked pepper

Olive oil

4 cloves garlic cut into quarter sized pieces

half glass red wine (cooking wine ie cheap wine is what I use)

Vegies for roasting (ie potato, pumpkin-butternut squash is best, sweet potato, carrot, parsnip)

Preheat oven to around 220c (around 430 F) (fan forced, so if its not fan forced, make it a few degrees warmer).

Cut little slits into the lamb a few cms apart, all over the top of the lamb and at the sides (and if there is a shank, do it there too).

Into these slits place garlic and rosemary sprigs (so break small sprigs off the stalk).

Season the lamb with salt and pepper and drizzle over some olive oil. Then pour over roughly half a glass of red wine.

Place in oven, you can turn it down to around 200c now (if not fan forced make it a few degrees warmer). Meanwhile peel any vegetables you want to roast, like potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, parsnips etc. I usually place the potatoes (that have olive oil, salt and pepper and some left over rosemary thrown on top) into the oven about 45 mins after the roast goes in, and then after about 10-15 mins I put the other vegies in with the potatoes. Some people place it all in one dish (ie lamb and vegies) but I don't, sometimes the vegies aren't done, or are done too quick).

After about an hour of cooking the lamb, take it out and baste it again with the juices that have formed in the pan (if it has all dried up, add a little water to the pan and a little wine and then put that over it).

The lamb this size takes around 1.5-2 hours to cook. You can take it out around 1.5 hours and check how its going by just cutting a small slice through the side, if its still quite rare then just leave it for say 20 mins and then check again. If you find the top is burning, you can place some foil over the top before you put it back in. You take it out when the meat has a slight pink colour to it, only slight, unless you like your meat rare then take it out when its a little pinker. Take it out of the pan and let it rest on a cutting board. The vegies should now also be done.

While its resting make up some gravy. I use a powder gravy max and pour in the juices from the pan, you can make your own gravy though, there are loads of different ways to do it on the net.

Then carve the meat, no real way to do it, I don't like it really thick, so I cut mine thin, usually you cut away from you. And you're done!! Now dig in before it gets cold!!