arayes - aka lamb-a-dillas

We saw a recipe for arayes in Cooks Illustrated this week. The idea looked so good that we just had to try it. When I described it to a dinner companion (a Texas Boy) on Friday evening, he said that just like quesadillas only with lamb. Hence the name.
The result is a really crispy, slightly smoky sandwich which can be eaten out of hand.  But it also makes a substantial meal. Because the recipe makes quite a few of these, we needed some victims (aka volunteers) to try them out. They came, they ate (and, I think, they liked). If not there was always the MacDonald's on the way home. Even though they are Kiwis, they are far too polite to tell me if they had to stop on the way.
We served them with a couple of salads and some tzatziki. They turned out ( the arayes, not the guests) as well as expected. And there are left overs!
The salads will be described in another post. Suffice it to say that the Coppell Farmers' Market was a source. And especially the la-ti-da farms feta.

Ingredients

1 large white onion cut into pieces

1 cup oregano (leaves and stalks)

1/2 cup lemon thyme (leaves and stalks)

zest and juice of one lemon

1T whole cumin seeds

1T whole coriander seeds

2t black pepper corns,

2t coarse sea salt

1t red pepper flakes

1/2" cinnamon stick

1/4 cup good (but not best) olive oil

1 T smokey paprika

2 lbs lamb leg, cut into 3/4" cubes. Chilled in the freezer for 30+ minutes.

6 x 6" pitas

Method

Pulse the onion, oregano and lemon time in the food processor until the onion is quite small. 8 or so pulses. You may need to scrape it down. Turn out into a bowl.

Grind the spices finely in the spice grinder, adding the coarse salt as that helps to grind them. Add the ground mixture, paprika, lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil to the onion/herb mixture.

Mince (grind for my American friends) the lamb twice using the coarse die. You need to do it twice because the lamb fat is unevenly distributed. The second grinding distributes it better.  I added a couple of table spoonfuls of the onion mixture to the grinder at the end to encourage all of the meat to come through.

Mix the lamb with the onion mixture until thoroughly incorporated. Use hands (mine are now really soft) or a silicone spatula.

Chill the lamb mixture for a while (at least an hour)

2 hours before cooking, slice the pitas in half (I use a serrated knife for this) horizontally. So for each pita you have two 6" disks of pita.

Mound the lamb mixture in the center of a pizza half, spread almost to the edge and top with the other half of the same pita.

Squeeze flat and wrap in cling wrap, refrigerate for a couple of hours. 

When ready to cook, fire up the grill (I used the Primo) with so that the coals have a nice ash coating. Grill the sandwiches directly over the coals until the pitas a crispy. Turn the pitas over and grill on the second side.  Time on the grill is about 7 minutes per side 

Remove from, slice into quarters and serve immediately.