Recipe Thursday - Donair Buns

With cold weather upon us, it's time to move to comfort food.  Each of us has our own food that fills this need.  My kids loved this dish from the first time I made it.  I didn't follow the recipe exactly and that didn't seem to matter.  This 2005 cookbook is still available from Company's Coming. 

While researching this book, I read that Jean Pare, founder of the company, had recently donated her personal collection of over 6,000 cookbooks to the Culinary archives at the University of Guelph's Library.

Donair Buns

Meat Roll

1/2 lb lean ground pork
1/2 lb lean ground beef
1/4 cup find dry bread crumbs
2 tsps dried parsley flakes
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/16 tsp cayenne peper

Mix all ingredients together.  Shape into an 11 inch long roll.  Place this on a greased wire rack and place over a baking sheet.  Cover with a layer of foil, leaving the bottom of the loaf uncovered.  Bake in 275 F  oven for about 3 hours.  Remove from oven and wrap loaf in foil and let sit for 15 minutes.  Slice diagonally in 1/4 slices.

Donair Sauce

1/2 cup low fat plain yogurt
1/3 cup light mayonnaise (not that white salad dressing spread)
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dill weed

Combine these 4 ingredients in a small bowl.


Sandwich toppings

diced red onion
torn lettuce
chopped tomato

To assemble sandwich

The recipe suggests hamburger or hot dog buns, but you can be traditional and use Greek style pita breads.  Spread sauce on the bread, sprinkle with onions, lettuce and tomato.  Add a few slices of the meat and then additional sauce if desired.  Cover with top of bun, or fold pita.  You can wrap this in a square of waxed paper to keep the filling from dropping out the bottom, that's how they do it in the Greek restaurants.


I usually double the meat recipe.  Since the oven is going to be on anyway, might as well make several meals worth.  Left over meat should freeze well, but I wouldn't know since it gets eaten the next day.  This is an easy meal to make as long as you don't mind sticking your hands in the meat mixture.  I don't have a cookie sheet with sides, so I balance my wire rack on top of my cake pan.  Fat will leak out of the meatloaf as it is cooking and you must have something under the rack to catch the drips. 

Its sad to say that I haven't made anything else out of this cookbook.  I was browsing through it and came across several more recipes that I want to try.  Too many cookbooks and too little time to try them all. 

Be sure to visit Beth Fish's 'Weekend Cooking' page and you can check out other readers favourite foods and food related entries.