Okay, see, there was this guy named Robert, except everyone called him Bob… 
Maybe it came from Western ears not hearing the word quite right. Is that how Westerners ended up saying “Peking” and “Bombay”? Or maybe there’s another story behind those.
If you can remember the chicken recipe (and if it was online) and can post it, I’d be much obliged.
We like the Iskender style best which is essentially melted butter (sometimes added tomato sauce/paste) poured on top of the meat, which is on top of bread…
Here’s one example of many…
Iskender Kebab | Recipe, Origin, History | Turkish or Greek? | Dishes: Origins (dishesorigins.com)
Clearly Greek. Iskender is Alexander.
Actually had it in Turkey where it’s common. But yes the “scholars differ” lol, it’s mentioned in the article above. Here’s a wiki
It is a Turkish dish, so more common there, but named after Iskender aka Alexander.
It’s not called Ataturk Kebab. 
(Ok I read the fine print. If the family’s name is İskenderoğlu, they are probably ethnic Greeks who are Turkish citizens, or intermarried- it’s the Turkish equivalent to Alexandriou)
ha, i agree with you…
“While the family trademarked the restaurant chain “Kebapçı İskender,” there has been a bit of controversy surrounding the name. It is said that the Greeks opposed the trademark registration because they claim that Iskender is a reference to Alexander the Great. They see Alexander the Great as a Greek hero, and therefore do not want a Turkish dish to be named after a Greek legend. The family countered this by simply stating the obvious: Their grandfather was named İskender and for years the dish has been called Iskender kebabı in memory of him. Let’s just say the Greeks were convinced.”
Oh, agreed. When I think gyro, though, pocket is not in the cards. I actually use a na’an recipe for my flats.
Phonetic for the the sounds made by the “a” in most languages. The /ah/ sound we make with an “o” in English. Or, we’d call them kababs, without the /ah/. Just my take. Interesting evolution of language from civaps, to kabap, to kabob.
This was on IG today
Thanks. Interesting to see one so light on the herbs/spices. No cumin, no rosemary, no thyme, etc. Still I’d like to make it (when the wife is not home, if I do it from 100% lamb).
I’ve never noticed much spicing other than oregano and garlic in the commercial gyros served by Greeks in Canada. Probably varies a lot!
Definitely more cumin in the shawarma and doner, which is why I order them more often.
Thanks, that looks interesting and just in time, as I have a tenderloin I need to use up within the next 4 or 5 days.
Friday night I made the one we discussed from Serious Eats a few weeks ago. Because my wife was home I used a pound each lamb and beef to take the lamb flavor down for her a bit. It was pretty good but I missed the earthier flavors. Or imagined that I did. My wife thought it was great and had leftovers for lunch Saturday and today, and she’s not a big fan of repetition.
Strangely, I got more liquid loss this time, compared to when I used his same liquid-saving techniques with another recipe as mentioned upthread. But still it was not swimming in expressed liquid as often happened when I would simply salt then immediately emulsify and bake, without the suggested 1-2 hours in the fridge.
Oh, P.S. I noticed something in Kenji’s recipe this time that I did not before. In the text he recites cooking to 165°F but in the instructions he recites 155°F. I’m not sure what I used as my endpoint the last time - might have been 155°F. This time I used 165. That could explain the difference in expressed liquid. There was another item of contradiction between text description and instruction but I can’t remember what it was now.
I go pure lamb, too. Damn I luv lamb!
As I’ve posted before, Alton Brown’s recipe is very good. Done as a loaf and oven cooked but the results were spot on.
Has anyone ever tried rolling out pita dough into rounds, and then storing the raw rounds for a bit before cooking them on a griddle?
I’m planning to bring gyros to a friend’s house and will have the meat and tzatziki prepared, which won’t suffer much from the journey and the meat reheats readily.
But I didn’t want to cook the breads until I get there because they’re really best fresh off the griddle and not quite as good if they’ve steamed off and then been re-heated.
I have made pita many times in the oven. If you are doing it on the grill, I would think that you would have to cover the grill, so that there is top heat as well as bottom heat. And you would have to check often after the first 4 minutes or so.
Thanks, and sorry I should have mentioned by “griddle” I mean on the stovetop on a griddle type pan, rather than a grill. With the pan at medium-hot, it only takes maybe 20-30 seconds per side.
But the thing I’m really curious about at the moment is whether raw roll-out rounds will stand sitting around up to a half hour or so before they’re cooked.
Well, if you’re doing them on a stovetop griddle, I would assume that you’ll have to flip them 2 or 3 times.
So to answer my own question - I made close to a double usual batch and rolled out 14 pieces of dough into roughly 10 inch rounds. I nested them between pieces of parchment paper and transported them (along with the previously made tzatziki, sliced tomatoes, pickled onions and toasted gyro meat that I’d made earlier today) and toted everything over to my friend’s house where they were busy making lefse.
I took along my handy 14 inch griddle, too. Cooked up the breads and people started serving as soon as the breads were coming off the griddle.
In my opinion, the pitas turned out a bit tougher than usual, although everyone liked them. So I don’t think rolling into flats then trying to transport for cooking is a good idea, unless you just have to do it that way.
I think it might have been better in this case to have transferred the whole piece of dough there and rolled-and-cooked immediately as usual. But in this case I knew they were using the rolling pins for the lefse and didn’t want to be in their way.
The hostess really loved the gyros, despite the toughness (to me) of the pitas and asked if I could do them again for her birthday in 2 weeks. I agreed on the condition that they come over to our house for it this time. So I don’t have to worry about transporting stuff and in particular don’t have to figure out the bread/transport question.
