Giros is a traditional Greek meat dish baked on a vertical skewer. It is served as a sandwich, with tomatoes, onions and tzatziki sauce, wrapped in pita bread.
Meat pieces are placed on a vertical skewer that rotates in front of a heat source, usually an elet + ktric heater. If the meat is not greasy enough, the bacon strips are added so that the roasted meat is always juicy and crispy. Grilled meat is cut into small pieces that are put into the pie. The pie is mostly served greased, slightly baked and warm. Special paper is placed on it and tomatoes, onions, baked potatoes or French fries are placed over the meat. The tzatziki sauce or sour cream is inserted into the gyros.
Giros originates from Turkish doner kabobs. It was later brought to Thessaloniki from where it spread throughout Greece as well as in Cyprus with various variations. In Greece, meat is usually pork or lamb, but veal and chicken can also be seen in some places. In Cyprus, gyros are mostly veal or chicken. Some places in Greece offer alternative ingredients in addition to standard ingredients. Gyros with pork are served with tzatziki sauce, while chicken is usually added with mayonnaise mixed with sour cream, called “σως” which means sauce. in Greek.
The size of gyros varies from place to place as does the ratio of ingredients and their size. More recently, various variations have been made and experimented with various ingredients. Some restaurants also have modern gyros, with strange flavors ranging from tuna gyros to "light gyros" for those on a diet.
In Greece and Cyprus, meat is usually pork or chicken and when you come across veal somewhere, gyros are called Doner. In Athens and most of Greece, gyros pie contains tzaziki, tomatoes, onions and french fries. In most places where you buy gyros you can add other types of salads such as thyrocafter, Russian salad, beef salad, etc.
You can usually find 3 types of pies: plain, sculptural and Arabic pies. The ordinary pie, which is also the most common, is about 20 cm in diameter and about 3 cm thick and is the thickest of these three. The pie is crunchy, larger in size and divided into small breads. The Arabian pie is crunchy, the flatter and the largest. Giros is also served in a sandwich bun - most commonly in northern Greece.
The biggest gyros pies can be eaten in Thessaloniki; gyros in addition to pies include meat, tomatoes, onions, fries, ketchup and mustard optional, tzatiki salad or grilled salad (feta cheese with hot peppers).
On Kos Island and other islands, gyros sellers only wrap chicken with hot potatoes.
In other Greek cities, such as Patra, for example, where this is not as popular a dish, gyros are often prepared in advance and then put into a toaster, as is the case with a popular European sandwich called Panino.
In Kalamata (Peloponnese) gyros are eaten in bread that is grilled (Thrakopsomo), cut into two halves and filled with a double portion of meat.
The taste of gyros is fantastic and this is one of the cheapest dishes. That is why our advice is to eat gyros in moderation and not so often, because it will not harm you then.
