Mmmmm! Sweet, Spicy Donair Goodness!

History of the Donair

The donair is a Nova Scotia favorite. According to the Food Network; “the Halifax donair was first invented in the 1970s by Peter Gamoulakos. Originally from Greece, he started selling Greek gyros (a pita stuffed with grilled lamb and tzatziki) from his restaurant located off the Bedford Highway. But the sandwich just didn’t jive with the East Coast’s “meat and potatoes” palate.

Swapping lamb for beef, the brothers whipped up a sweet “donair sauce” and tried again. This time, however, a feeding frenzy erupted and Halifax’s signature dish was born.”

I grew up with donairs, love them! I never realized; however that they were only a Nova Scotia dish??

What? You can’t get them anywhere else?

Until, a number of years ago, when I – like many Maritimers – went out West to work. I was just starting out and began teaching in the wonderful Northern community of St. Theresa Point, Manitoba. I loved it! I learned a lot – about teaching, about their Native culture, about myself and about the beauty of the natural wilderness and it’s animals.

I sampled many traditional Native dishes and although I tried to get the recipes a few have eluded me. (If anyone has a Moose Stew recipe from St. Therese, please let me know. I’d love to have it – I have never tasted moose quite as good!)

A Taste of Home

While there, I met a lot of other Maritimers and although we loved the local cooking, we missed some of our tastes from home. If we got the chance to fly out to Winnipeg we would make sure to pick up some fast food but no matter how hard we tried we could not find a pizzeria that served donairs.

Once a month the teachers got together for a pot luck dinner and everyone brought a dish from home. So, there were lots of Native dishes, entrées from out west, some from the east and even a few from England. We had quite a diverse teaching staff.

Since we could not find donairs or donair meat I decided to try making my own. Here is my recipe:

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Delicious Nova Scotia Donair Recipe

Ingredients:

Directions

Both the donair meat and the sauce should sit for several hours before eating. Making them early in the day (or even the day before) is best. They need time to cool and for the flavours to meld.

Meat

Preheat oven to 150*C (300*F).

Mix together the ground beef, bread crumbs and spices. If you have a stand mixer or hand blender, beat it together for 5 – 10 minutes until it resembles a mushy mess. If you are mixing by hand mix as long as you can, breaking down the meat as much as possible.

Pack meat mixture tightly into a log / loaf shape

Bake (on foil lined cookie sheet) at 150*C (300*F) for 2 1/2 hours.

Cool completely (overnight, if possible)

Slice into very thin slices

Sauce

Mix all ingredients together

Cover and place in the refrigerator to thicken (preferably overnight)

Putting it all together

Chop tomato, green pepper and onion into small pieces

Heat the sliced donair meat in the microwave or – if you want it a bit crispier, fry the slices in 5ml (1tsp) olive oil until heated through. (You can heat the pita bread this way also.)

Give each person a slice of pita bread (I hope to add a recipe for pitas here soon) and let them load their donair as they like.

Enjoy the ooey, gooey sweetness. Try not to get too much on you! 🙂