[00:01] Hello, this is Chef John from FoodWishes.com with... Swayze Gyro Dogs! That's right, we're giving America's favorite tube-shaped meat a Mediterranean
[00:13] makeover. And besides showing you how to eat a hot dog, a burger, and a gyro at the same time, we're also going to teach you a new word, since apparently calling something sweet and spicy takes too long. And to get started, we will put together our meat mixture, which we'll do with a pound of
[00:29] ground beef as well as a pound of ground lamb and feel free to use all one or the other but i really do think half and half works best and then to those we will grate in some raw onion which is
[00:41] not my favorite thing to do but we only need about a quarter cup so this will be over fast and you can just mince it but grating it is more traditional and more effective but either way we'll follow that with some crushed garlic a little bit of plain bread crumbs as well as some
[00:58] some finely minced fresh rosemary, plus a generous amount of dried oregano. We'll also need some ground cumin, some smoked paprika, some freshly ground black pepper, some salt of course, plus a
[01:12] few shakes of cayenne. And then I like to do a little tiny touch of cinnamon, which apparently is controversial, but I like it, so I do. And then we'll finish up with a couple tablespoons of cold
[01:24] fresh water. At which point we'll get in there with two bare clean hands and we will start mixing and we will keep mixing until everything's very very thoroughly mixed. Usually when we're mixing
[01:36] ground beef we're very careful not to over mix but in this case we actually want to intentionally over mix since we want this to have a firm bite to not be crumbly. In fact a lot of people would do this in a food processor to get a proper emulsion but since I kind of want something
[01:51] that's a hybrid between a burger and a hot dog. I think just a thorough hand mixing is going to be fine. And once that done we can go ahead and shape our dogs which we do on some plastic wrap with some damp hands which of course prevents the meat from sticking to our skin And we take exactly one eighth of our mixture which yes I did with
[02:10] a scale so they're exact. And we'll form a log about seven inches long. Since seven inches is plenty, that's what I said. And the reason seven inches is plenty is because our buns are six
[02:22] inches. And these are going to shrink about an inch when they cook, which means if everything goes according to plan, they will fit perfectly. But anyway, we'll roll those up and smooth them out nice and uniformly. And we'll give those ends a little bit of a twist. And that's it. We'll do
[02:37] the same thing to the other seven portions. And we'll transfer those onto a pan and then transfer them into the fridge overnight, or at the very least for three or four hours to give the meat a chance to cure and for those seasonings to work themselves in. And by the way, if you don't have
[02:52] time to form your hot dogs right when you mix the meat. You can just refrigerate the meat overnight and then shape your hot dogs the next day. But it really doesn't matter as long as that meat gets a chance to sit for a while. But either way, besides shaping our dogs, we're going to want to make our
[03:07] hot honey, which is what's going to make these spicy. And for that, all we need is a little bit of honey, a little bit of freshly squeezed lemon juice, or not too much, just like a teaspoon. and then we'll spice this up with two things a nice big squeeze of shirazza hot sauce plus a
[03:24] nice big spoon of cayenne which actually came out as a big chunk and I don't know why maybe high humidity but anyway we'll mix that up so later we can use that to brush on our grilling
[03:36] dogs and then the other component we can mix up ahead of time would be our garlic sauce which is nothing more than some Greek yogurt to which we will add some crushed garlic followed by a touch
[03:48] of freshly squeezed lemon juice. And we'll finish up with a pinch of salt and a drizzle of olive oil. And we will give that a quick mix before we add our water. I mean you can add the water with the rest of the ingredients, but if I do, I always
[04:01] splash it out of the bowl when I start to mix and it super annoying So we give this a mix first to loosen it up before we add the amount of water that gives us our desired texture You can leave this nice and thick but I want to add enough so I can use
[04:16] a squeeze bottle for that professional magazine cover presentation. And that's it. Once everything said, we can start cooking our dogs, which I highly suggest you do in a charcoal grill. But any standard method for cooking hot dogs will work with these. So you decide. I mean,
[04:33] And you are, after all, the god of your swicy gyro dog. But I think all hot dogs, especially ones made out of this stuff, are at their best cooked on a grill. And what we'll do is let that first side cook for about two minutes before we give them
[04:47] a turn. And then I'll repeat that process every two minutes for about eight minutes total before we start brushing these with our hot honey. And I'm not going to show you every turn because they all kind of look the same.
[05:00] this is what they look like when I thought I was ready to start brushing on the honey. And by the way, I had the worst luck with the wind during this video. Right during every single shot, the wind would shift and blow it right towards the camera.
[05:13] But anyway, we'll go ahead and give those a generous brushing. And as soon as that's applied, we're going to want to turn these over so the honey's facing the coals and it starts to caramelize a little bit. But be careful, since as you know, anytime you're basting or brushing something with a sweet sauce,
[05:29] it can quickly burn. So basically as soon as we brush the other side we'll flip these back over and we'll keep doing that until either our honey's gone or we decide our dogs are safely cooked
[05:41] through at which point we'll pull those off the grill and we will head inside and serve up and before dog hits bun we'll want to take our garlic sauce and spread or squeeze some inside the bun
[05:54] And as you can see, I went with the split top style, which I think makes for a much nicer presentation. And to prove it, I'm gonna nestle one of our glistening Euro dogs down in.
[06:06] And then as far as fixings go, I gonna squeeze in some nice sweet cherry tomatoes along the top edge And once those were perfectly placed in we will apply some more garlic sauce over the top And right here you can see the advantages of the squeeze bottle
[06:20] I mean a dollop's nice, a spread is fine, but neither of those applications is going to look as enticing as this. Especially when we finish up with some thinly sliced red onions, followed by
[06:32] some finely diced cucumber. And pro tip, if you soak your red onions in a mixture of half water and half red wine vinegar. They will taste better and have an even more beautiful color. And that, my friends, is one gorgeous dog. So let me grab a knife and cut this in half
[06:49] so we can see what's going on. And what's going on is the same meat we used for a gyro, presented in hot dog form. And above and beyond the incredible flavors here, and they really were spectacular. Texturally speaking, as I had hoped, we have something
[07:05] right between a burger and a hot dog. Oh, and please note, because of the salt and paprika, and the fact that we let this cure in the fridge overnight, even cooked all the way through, the meat's going to retain a little bit of a pink color. So don't let that throw you off.
[07:20] And I actually think it's kind of a nice perk. And then getting back to the flavor for a second, those herbs and spices we used worked incredibly well with that spicy glaze. So while optional, I really hope you include that if you make these. Although I'm sorry,
[07:35] I'm actually going to go back to saying sweet and spicy. I'm not sure people my age should be using terms like spicy. I'm sure a lot of people probably think that's sus. But no matter what term you use, or whether you say gyro or gyro,
[07:48] I loved everything about this. Which is why I really do hope you give it a try soon. So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual.
[08:01] And as always, enjoy.