chicken souvlaki
two souva’s that i’ve had stand out for me .
chicken gyro in the main street of santorini, circa 1990 ish. so i can’t remember the name of the place, but it was in the centre of town across from the square, a little shop serving up the most delicious gyro’s ever. i was no stranger to a late night souvlaki, but this was different, tender succulent lemony chicken, authentic greek garlic sauce and smoked paprika on a soft chewy pita. i’d go back just for that.
souvlaki king in brunswick st, fitzroy in the late 90’s early 2000’s , i did some of my best late night work around here and the night ender was a double chicken souvlaki with cheese, tzatziki , lettuce, tomato and a double pita. It wasn’t anything fancy but i used to love it.
Ok so, i dont have one of those spinning meat cooker things, so i’m going to grill some chicken thigh’s in olive oil and lemon. but before that, the pita you get in the supermarket isn’t what you want. you need soft chewy pita that doesn’t crack or go hard when toasted.
i slightly modified my go to pizza dough recipe with a little less yeast and more olive oil to get a dough that is soft and stretchy and easy to roll out. Some people say to cook your pita dough in the oven, i prefer to grill it on a hot plate. once you’ve grilled your pita it should be soft, but not doughy.
then it’s as easy as making some tzatziki, slicing some tomato and iceberg lettuce and frying up some chips.
the tzatziki is - cucumber, garlic, greek yoghurt, parsley and olive oil, just mix it all together and keep it in the fridge.
i just usually pile it all in the pita, chips last and sprinkle with smoked paprika. i probably over did it in the video below, it’s probably not a good idea to make these videos while hungry.
the knife i made for the souvlaki is a forged high carbon steel full tang kitchen knife with black walnut scales, unfortunately it developed a crack so it ended up being slightly shorter than i had planned, but that’s knife making for you.
you can check it out below.
