![]() For the same reason, I’ve kept the spicing relatively simple: the canonical cumin, coriander, turmeric and pepper, plus some sweet spices, because I love them, and Obi and Salma’s smoked paprika for a touch of fire that’s reminiscent of a charcoal grill. Lemon seems a gentler option than vinegar, and garlic feels a must, though not too much, given that there will also be garlic in the sauce, and even the more robustly meaty chicken thigh is easily overwhelmed. ![]() I cannot deny that all of the above are tasty, but we prefer the less aggressively tangy examples, though we do miss the acid element in those that omit it altogether. As well as lemon juice, recipes use vinegar, sometimes in quantity: Kalla adds both white- and red-wine versions), while Obi and Salma, like Sabrina Ghayour, marinade their meat in yoghurt and also add tomato puree. In short, there are a lot of options in the spice department before we even address the choice of acid both to flavour and to tenderise the meat. Pack the chicken into a tin: Nigella Lawson’s shawarma. Nigella Lawson brings bay and nutmeg to the party, and contributes some chilli flakes of her own. Like Obi and Salma of the YouTube channel Middle Eats, Kalla also calls for garlic powder – in addition to most of the spices listed above, they also pop in onion powder, smoked paprika, baharat, ground ginger, bay leaves and nutmeg. The Ottolenghi team adds fresh ginger and coriander, paprika, sumac and the north African spice blend ras el hanout, which generally contains Kalla’s ginger, cinnamon and sometimes cloves, though not her red onion. Yasmin Khan’s book Zaitoun and Michael Solomonov’s Israeli Soul are responsible for the two simplest marinades I find: the former uses just (!) lemon juice and zest, garlic, turmeric, allspice, cumin, olive oil and pepper, while the latter eschews the lemon and garlic, but puts in cardamom and coriander instead of allspice. Much as we love crisp chicken skin, it stays a bit chewy here, and the thighs seem to have enough fat in them to keep them basted during the relatively short cooking time. My testers and I all agree that, tender as it is, it also feels a bit dry in comparison with the thigh that said, the fatty chicken skin in Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi’s recipe on the Ottolenghi website doesn’t have many fans around here, either. Most recipes call for chicken thigh, with only Joudie Kalla (who writes in her book Baladi, “who doesn’t like shawarma? It is a staple of Palestine … I adore it – as long as it’s done right”) using breast instead. Though shawarma is also made from lamb, beef and turkey, I’ve stuck with chicken, because there seemed more than enough possibility to explore with that alone, though much the same technique could be adapted for other meats. The chickenīreast is best: Joudie Kalla’s shawarma. ![]() ![]() Happily, I’ve discovered it is indeed possible to get great results without investing in either. The thing that binds them all together, however, is the difficulty in recreating this much-loved street food at home, if one doesn’t live in the vicinity of professionals and, unaccountably, also lacks a metre-long rotating skewer in front of a four-burner gas grill in one’s own kitchen. It’s unsurprising that such a clever idea has spread so widely, but each version has its own distinct character, and the shawarma, found from Egypt to Iraq, is quite different from the herby gyros or the more mildly spiced, oniony döner – and different again in every country where it’s popular. Shawarma, an Arabic word thought to come from the Turkish çervirmek, meaning to rotate or spit-roast, is the Levantine cousin of the Greek gyros and the Turkish döner: skewers of sliced or minced meat, turned in front of a vertical grill, and slowly cooked in its own delicious fat until it’s sliced on to your plate. ![]()
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