Crispy Pork-Belly Gyros with fried eggplants in a potato-onion flatbread

By stancec44

Ingredients

• Ingredients: (enough for 5-6 sandwiches)
• 700 g whole fresh pork belly with skin
• 1.5 tsp each of black peppercorns,
• fennel seeds
• allspice
• oregano
• 3 bay leaves
• 4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 150 g onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup dry white wine (optional)
• 1.5 l water or enough to cover the pork belly
• Potato flatbread (makes 5-6 medium sized ones)
• 150 g cooked potatoes, passed through a ricer
• 1/2 cup semolina flour
• 1 medium onions, diced
• 1/2 tbsp of water or as needed
• salt
• Tzatziki
• 100 g seeded cucumber, diced
• 125 g quark (20% fat) or thick yogurt
• 1-2 small garlic clove2, pureed
• 4-5 mint leaves, chopped
• salt
• Fried eggplant slices
• Vegetable oil for frying

Details

Servings 5
Adapted from gojee.com

Preparation

Step 1

Method:
Cut the pork belly across the longest of its sides, in strips 5cm/2" wide and place in a pressure cooker, or Dutch oven. Add all the rest of the ingredients, cover and bring to the highest pressure setting; cook for 1.5h over moderate fire, just enough to maintain the pressure in the pot.
If you are using a Dutch oven, braise the pork belly over medium/low fire until very tender. Try not to let the broth boil of it may become too fatty.
Once the meat will be cooked, let it cool undisturbed in the braising liquid before transferring it, gently, in a bowl and refrigerate (at this point you may want to discard the bay leaves). This will ensure that the porkbelly wont fall apart while you are trying to lift it up.
Let the braise cool down until the rendered fat will solidify (4h to overnight). Remove the fat and reserve to use as a spread. It will be wonderfully enriched by all the spices used in the cooking process.
The rich stock will have jellified too so before straining it, transfer as much of it as you can on a saucepan; be careful not to break the meat too much.
Place the saucepan over medium fire and stir until the stock will have completely liquefied. To scrape the rest of the juices from the meat, place it over a plate and into a very low preheated oven until they will have liquefied; pour them in the saucepan.
Strain the stock through a fine mousseline pressing well all the tidbits. Return the stock to the saucepan and let it reduce over medium-low fire to 1/3rd of its original volume; reserve. This will make the sauce for the gyros.
In the meantime that the stock is reducing, place the diced cucumber in a fine-mesh strainer, salt them and let them drain. This way you will get most of the water out of them before assembling your tzatziki and they will acquire a pleasing green hue and crunchy texture.


To make the potato flatbreads, gather the finely chopped onions in a mousseline gently sprinkle with salt and squeeze them over a bowl to gather their juices. In a big bowl, combine the cooked potatoes, onions, onion juices, salt and semolina flour and knead gently until you get a malleable dough. Let the dough rest for 10min. Upon standing the dough might get sticky, in this case knead in a little extra flour.
To form the flatbread you will need a nonstick surface, some oiled plastic wrap will do the trick. Spoon some of the dough on the oiled surface, oil the top of the dough and shape it onto a flat round. In the meantime have a flat skillet warming up over medium-low fire. Slightly oil both the pan and on of your hands, lift the flatbread onto your oiled hand and carefully place it onto the skillet. The flatbread may wrinkly on the transfer, use a flat spatula to gently redistribute the dough.
Cook the flatbread on one side until the raw dough appearance will have disappeared, flip it and cook for another couple of minutes. Reserve the cooked flatbreads in an insulted container or a warm oven. Continue cooking the bread until the dough will be finished.


In the meantime that the breads are cooking take the skin out of the pork belly pieces and carefully slice them across the longest axis into 5mm-1/4" thick slices.
When the flatbread will all be cooked, add a little vegetable oil in the skillet and turn the fire up to medium. Gently transfer the pork belly slices on the skillet to crisp up just from one side. Reserve on a warm plate ready for assemble.
Assemble the tzatziki by simple combining the quark (or yogurt) with the diced cucumber, the mashed garlic and the mint leaves; season with salt if needed.
To assemble your gyros sandwich place some tzatziki, fried eggplant slices and crispy pork belly onto a flatbread; drizzle with the reduced braising sauce (if in the meantime it has jellified, lightly warm it up) and enjoy either as a wrap or as a sandwich by covering it with another potato flatbread.