Shawarma is a popular fast food dish that originates from the Middle East. Its base is meat (traditionally lamb, chicken, beef, or turkey), cooked on a vertical grill, sliced into thin strips, and wrapped in thin lavash or pita. Shawarma also includes various vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage), sauces (garlic, tahini, yogurt, or spicy), and spices.
Today, it is probably difficult to list the number of fast-food establishments that prepare dozens, if not hundreds, of varieties of shawarma. You can eat in the establishment or order delivery to your home. However, we decided to test our own skills and prepared shawarma at home. What we came up with β we will tell and show you next
Time spent: 40-50 minutes
Difficulty: 2 out of 5
Cost: average
We will need
From the list below, we managed to prepare 6 medium-sized shawarmas, and with the leftover lavash, we made chips as well. Therefore, the proportions and quantities of ingredients can be adjusted based on your own needs, as well as experiment with fillings by adding your favorites.
So, here is the list of ingredients we used:
large lavash - 2 pieces
chicken fillet - 700 g
white cabbage β 400 g
1 tablespoon of unrefined oil and vinegar
1 medium-sized tomato
4 small pickled cucumbers (fresh can be used)
100 g mayonnaise
300 g thick yogurt
3 cloves of garlic
a small bunch of dill
juice of 1/4 lemon
salt, pepper, a mixture of spices for frying chicken (we used smoked paprika, khmeli-suneli, and curry).
Cooking
The longest process is frying the chicken, so we start with that. We separate the tendons and membranes from the fillet, rub with salt, pepper, and spices. We heat the pan, add a small amount of oil, and place the whole fillets. We fry on low heat under a closed lid for about 10-15 minutes, after which we turn them over and fry for the same amount of time. Then, right in the pan, we start cutting the chicken into smaller pieces and mix thoroughly so that all of them are evenly soaked in spices. This compensates for the lack of a vertical grill.
When the meat is fried, we set it aside on a plate for further preparation of the shawarma.
While frying the chicken, we prepare the vegetable filling and garlic sauce. For the sauce, it is necessary to grate the garlic on a fine grater and finely chop the dill. In a deep container, we mix mayonnaise with yogurt, squeeze in the lemon juice, add salt and pepper to taste, and add the grated garlic and dill. We mix thoroughly, adding more spices if needed.
We finely chop the cabbage, squeeze it by hand, add a pinch of salt, and dress with unrefined oil and vinegar.
We slice the pickled cucumbers into thin rounds and cut the tomatoes into half-moons. We transfer the chicken from the pan to a plate, which means that all the fillings and sauce are ready.
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We cut the lavash sheet in half across. This way, we will form a small shawarma with a minimal amount of dough.
We place the cabbage, chicken, sauce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and another layer of sauce.
We wrap it around, tucking the edges of the lavash inside.
We decided to bake four shawarmas in the oven (temperature 200 degrees, with both upper and lower heating elements and convection mode, baking time β 10 minutes), and prepare the other two on a small grill (the temperature in our unit is not adjustable, cooking time for one shawarma is also 10 minutes), to compare which cooking method is better.
Shawarma on the grill
Shawarma in the ovenAs it turned out, both are roughly the same, as the shawarma comes out juicy and crispy. On the grill, it is a bit βflatterβ due to the pressing factor of the working surfaces. In the oven, the edges of the lavash turned out a bit crispier. Therefore, you can use the method that you prefer or have available.
