Rochelle Elie
Last summer, my husband came back from one of his work travels raving about food he had at a Syrian restaurant in Amsterdam, describing a crispy pita filled with a thin layer of meat and packed with flavor. Through some quick Googling, we discovered the dish he had was Arayes, usually made with lamb, which has quite a similar taste to venison, and knew we had to make our own. Arayes are mainly considered to be a Lebanese food, but they’re made in several Middle Eastern countries. This may be the Dutch touch on this dish, but my husband recalled them being drizzled with honey, which we think makes them even better.
If you’re anything like us, you have a few dozen pounds of ground venison in your freezer just waiting to be used. This is a great quick weeknight meal, not too heavy. Once it gets warm out, it’s the perfect thing to cook on an outdoor griddle if you have one.
If you don’t have any ground venison, I’ve also cut a partially frozen small venison roast into cubes and pulsed it in the food processor to make this dish. I prefer a no-fat-added ground venison, but if yours has fat, that’s fine too.
This recipe serves 4 and would go great with chips, fries, or a Mediterranean salad of some kind.
Ingredients
+ 4-5 Pita Bread Pockets
+ Honey
+ Olive oil spray (or oil to brush on)
+ Meat Filling:
- 1 pound of ground venison
- 1 tbsp Olive oil (if there’s no added fat in your venison grind)
- 1/2 small yellow onion - grated or diced as small as you can
- 2 cloves garlic - grated (or garlic paste)
- 3 tsp cumin
- 3 tsp coriander
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley and/or 1 tsp fresh mint (optional)
- 1.5 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 tsp allspice
- 1/2 tsp cayenne (optional - less or more for spice preference)
- 1 tsp salt
+ Yogurt Dip:
- 3/4 cup plain Greek Yogurt
- Juice of 1 lemon (can add a little zest as well for more lemon flavor)
- 1 clove of garlic, grated (or 1 tsp of garlic paste)
- Salt to taste
Directions
Combine all the ingredients for the meat mixture - your hands will work best for this. Let the mixture chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to let the flavors come together, but you can also prep this the night before (just make sure to cover tightly in plastic wrap if you do). The same can be done with the yogurt dip.
Cut the pita breads in half. Split the meat mixture into 8-10 equal-size portions. Open up the pocket to stuff the meat mixture inside. (If the pocket is stuck together, microwave for about 8 seconds to soften it.) You want to smoosh it into a very thin layer so there is no part of the pita left uncovered. Spray the outside of the pitas with cooking oil spray or brush it on. This is the perfect amount of oil - putting oil in the pan makes the pitas too greasy.
Heat a skillet or cooktop to medium-medium high heat and cook each pocket for two minutes on each side. Because the meat is so thin, it will be perfectly cooked in the pita pocket while the outside is nice and crispy.
Serve with the yogurt dip, drizzled with a small amount of honey.
