Recipe: Greek Style Chicken with Tzatziki, Grilled Pita and Salad (Mediterranean Medley)
This is one of my favorite meals. It is so easy to cook and tastes delicious. Placed on top of a salad with olives, feta cheese and crunchy veggies it is the perfect dinner salad for summer! If you are not a chicken lover this dish is perfect with Lamb – that is the way I am cooking it for my upcoming Mediterranean Medley Class. However, this week we seemed to have an over abundance of chicken so I made it this way. Serve with grilled pita bread and you have a wonderful, healthy meal! If you want to be a bit naughty, it tastes wonderful with home made baked oven fries (in addition to the pita of course!!!)! I also served it with the leftover
Baba Ganoush and some Hummus we had!
INGREDIENTS:
3 Lbs of chicken or lamb meat
1 Tbs coriander
1 Tbs cumin
1 Tbs sumac
salt and pepper to taste
juice of 1 lemon
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 bag of romaine hearts
1 cup feta cheese
4 Roma tomatoes sliced
½ cucumber
½ cup Kalamata olives
½ red onion
1 cup greek style yogurt
juice from 1 lemon
2 cloved garlic crushed
2/3 cup cucumber , peeled, seeded and diced
1 Tbs of extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbs fresh mint
1 Tbs fresh dill
sea salt to taste
4 greek style pita breads
extra virgin olive oil
dried oregano
dried thyme
METHOD:
Drizzle meat with olive oil and lemon juice. In a large bowl, place lamb or chicken, coriander, cumin, sumac, salt, pepper into a bowl and coat meat with spices. Set in fridge until time to grill.
Mix all Tzatziki dressing ingredients together in food processor and whirl until creamy and smooth.
Brush each pita round with olive oil and sprinkle with oregano and thyme. Set aside.
Place meat on grill and grill on each side for about 4-5 minutes or until cooked through. For the last 2 minutes, place pitas on the grill and grill until they get grill marks. Cut each pita round into 4 triangles. Cut meat into strips against the grain to keep it tender or leave chicken breasts whole if you prefer- that is what is did this time.
Mix all salad ingredients in a large bowl, placing the meat on top. Drizzle Tzatziki dressing on top of the salad. Keep the remainder in a bowl so people can serve themselves more if desired.
Serves 6 as a main meal.
Truffle - June 10, 2007 at 8:25 pm
What a wonderful combination and such beautiful photos too!
Wendy - June 11, 2007 at 9:03 am
Love the photos!
Cynthia - June 11, 2007 at 11:45 am
Jenn, this is definitely a keeper. I think I’ll make everything for a meal the time time I am entertaining. I have never had Tzatsiki before but it sounds so good. Saw it on the Food Network yesterday on the burger Throwdown with Bobby Flay. I will definitely try it.
Roberto – the pics rock! 🙂
Elly - June 11, 2007 at 12:30 pm
We had tzatziki this weekend too! Yum 🙂 Your pics look great!
Cris - June 11, 2007 at 2:50 pm
That looks not only beautiful, but delicious, I would love to be in your class!
The Leftover Queen - June 11, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Thanks Guys! I am glad you all like the Tzatziki. It is one of my favorites!
Truffle, Wendy and Cynthia and Elly! I will be sure to give all your great comments about the pictures to Roberto!
Cynthia, Tzatziki is really good. I have had it on a burger before and it is quite delicious served that way!
Elly, Isn’t it great to have in the summer? It is so refreshing and cooling!
Cris, I wish you could join the class, I think it would be great! 🙂
Patricia Scarpin - June 12, 2007 at 10:28 am
Jenn, my type of dish – it looks refreshing and delicious!
The Leftover Queen - June 12, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Thanks Patricia!
Sylvia - June 13, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Jenn ,this recipe looks delicious !!! I will try this recipe.
The Leftover Queen - June 14, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Hi Sylvia! Enjoy!
Mia - August 24, 2008 at 6:18 pm
THANKS for your tzatziki recipe, loved the food processor pic’s, simply beautiful and artistic.
I used up my aging dill and past its prime lemon. Threw in green onions I had. Skipped the oil. Threw in some feta cheese. Used long english cucumbers, thanks for the seeding tip, other recipes want you to drain cucumbers, seeding in the first place gets rid of a lot of excess water anyhow.
Would be lovely to add lemon rind to this as well for an added lemon flavour. Also works without lemon as the yogurt is quite tangy.
Now I have a huge bowl of tzatziki that I will be drizzling away on everything for a few days.
Beautiful blog thanks again.