Gyro Lettuce Wraps

Put the onion in a food processor for 15-20 seconds. Once it is pulpy, put it in a thin towel. Gather up the ends of the towel and squeeze over the sink until almost all the juice is removed.

Put the onion back in the food processor along with the ground meats, garlic, salt and spices. Process it all until it is a fine paste, about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. (This can be difficult depending on the size of your food processor. You will most likely have to stop every so often to scrape down the sides. If you have a small food processor, mix all the ingredients first in a bowl with your hands. Then process in batches. Once it’s all been processed, remix it all together by hand.)

Preheat the oven to 325ºF.

Divide the meat in half and put each in loaf pans. Press the meat down with your fingers, making sure to get it all the way out to the edges and the corners. (I use those disposable pans, so if you have a bigger pan, you can put it all in one.)

Place the loaf pan(s) into a water bath. I use a Pyrex or ceramic casserole dish.

Bake for 60-75 minutes if you are doing all the meat together, 50-60 minutes if using 2 pans. The internal temperature should read 165 to 170ºF.

Take the loaves out of the oven and drain the fat. The best way is to hold the meat in the pan with paper towels and turn upside down. Cover the meat with a few fresh paper towels. If the meat pulled away from the pan while cooking, fill the gap more paper towels. Then put the loaf pan on a cooling rack. Alton Brown wraps a brick in aluminum foil and puts that on the meat, but I don’t have a brick. So I just put another loaf pan on top of the meat and put cans of soup in it to weight it down.

Let the meat rest and press for 15-20 minutes while you get the rest of the meal together.

Thinly slice the meat and serve with red leaf lettuce (red leaf is a little bendier for wrapping, but romaine or any other large leaf would work), tzatziki, thinly sliced red/sweet onion, thinly sliced tomatoes, thinly sliced colored bell pepper, thin half-moon slices of cucumber, and hummus.

If you’re feeling especially fancy, you can always put out sliced pepperoncinis, quartered artichoke hearts, feta cheese, Greek olives, whatever floats your boat and fits in your lettuce.

Lettuce wraps are awesome because clean up is a cinch! Just throw all the leftover toppings in a bowl, and you’ve got a great Greek salad for lunch the next day!