Food Love: Chicken Souvlaki on an Open Pita

Here's the deal guys, I've been horrible with recipe posts. I don't think I've done one for about 4 months now. Most of you probably don't even know that I ever did them!

But I found one, stashed away in my files, that I forgot to post from the summer.  It's a recipe for Chicken Souvlaki on an open pita. It was SOO yummy! I didn't come up with it, it came from the Milk Calendar for 2009. Read on, or check out the link to learn how to make some of this yummy goodness!

You will need:

1 tbsp. butter

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp dried oregano

Salt & Pepper

1 onion, halved and thinly sliced

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken, cut into 1-inch pieces

2 tbsp. all-purpose flour

1 & 1/2 cups of milk

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Whole wheat pitas (8 small or four large)

1 cup diced English Cucumber

1/2 cup plain yogurt (I substituted Greek Yogurt to keep it a little thicker)

2 tomatoes, chopped

Directions

1. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat.  Add garlic, onion, oregano, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper and sauté for about 3 mins until softened and starting to brown. Add chicken and sauté for about 5 minutes or until lightly brown.

2. Whisk flour into milk and whisk into skillet; stir in lemon zest. Cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes until sauce is thickened and chicken is no longer pink inside.  --> This step took me longer than 5 minutes, I found that for the sauce to thicken, it took closer to 15 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, toast or heat pitas. In a bowl, combine cucmber and yogurt**. Spoon chicken and sauce onto top of pitas, dollop with cucumber yogurt and sprinkle with tomatoes. 

How I customized the recipe: 

**Instead of just doing a cucumber-yogurt sauce, I googled how to make Tzatziki sauce and went with that.  If you plan to do something like this, you'll need to start dinner a little in advance because it takes a while to drain the cucumber.  I will post the recipe I used for the sauce below.

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Tzatziki Sauce Recipe

1 container plain Greek yogurt

1 cucumber

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 lemon, juiced and zest

1 & 1/2 tsp chopped fresh dill

1 & 1/2 cloves garlic, peeled

Salt & pepper to taste

Directions

1. If you are not using Greek Yogurt, follow this first step: The night before, place yogurt in a paper towel-lined strainer over another bowl and leave in the fridge overnight.  It will drain some of the yogurt and you want to be left with a thicker yogurt-like consistency for the sauce.  

2. Peel, seed and cut the cucumber, and place the pieces in a strainer over a bowl. Cover with salt.  The salt takes the water from the cucumber and drains it for you.  This will make sure your sauce doesn't get too watery. This step was the most challenging, in my opinion =). 

3. In a food processor or blender, combine all ingredients. Process until they are mixed and the sauce is smooth.

4. Transfer the sauce to a separate dish and cover & refrigerate for at least an hour.

ENJOY!!!