The sandwich Halifax put to a vote

Peter Gamoulakos, a Greek immigrant, opened King of Donair in Halifax in 1973 with gyros in mind. In Greece a gyro is often lamb with tzatziki. He changed it for local tastes, seasoning ground beef for the spit and swapping the tzatziki for something sweet. The swap stuck, and the donair has been travelling west ever since, which is how a Halifax late-night staple ended up on a Calgary menu.

The sauce is four things: sweetened condensed milk or evaporated milk, sugar, white vinegar and garlic powder. Condensed milk is sweet already, so recipes that use it go light on the sugar or skip it.

The vinegar does the clever part. Stirred slowly into the milk, the acid thickens it, so a pourable can turns into a sauce that clings to hot meat. Most home recipes say to add it a spoonful at a time while you stir, and to stop once it coats a spoon.

Sweet sounds strange next to beef until you taste it against the spice and the raw onion. The sugar takes the edge off both, so every bite lands soft instead of hot.

The Halifax Hero was one of the first dishes BetterDay ever made, and it has been on the menu since day one. It is still a fan favourite, and an easy one for the whole family, because the spice is gentle and the sauce is sweet.

A pita does not enjoy a few days in the fridge, so we kept the parts of a donair that do. The Halifax Hero Donair Bowl is thin marinated beef over golden shawarma-spiced rice, with tomato, sweet onion, pickles and the pink pickled turnip you know from a shawarma plate. Tzatziki potatoes sit beside it, and the sweet garlic sauce goes over the top.

For a plant-based household, the Halifax Hero Veggie Donair Bowl does the same job with roasted shawarma soy curls in place of the beef. The sweet garlic sauce stays, because that is the part Halifax voted for.