I made LEGIT CHICKEN SHAWARMA sandwiches at home and it was amazing!

the time has finally come we're making the best chicken shawarma sandwiches on all of youtube i promise you guys that i'll do a chicken shawarma video when we hit 1 000 subscribers and two weeks ago we did exactly that now we're at 1.6k so i wanted to thank you and put you onto a recipe and technique that will upgrade your chicken shawarma game a million times over [Music] no more bland chicken strips and no more dry overcooked shawarma today we'll be making the perfect marinade and we'll be testing our oven grilled versus pan fried shawarma to see which technique works best at home welcome to the 1000 subscriber special if you're new here i'm obi a home cook who wants to get you cooking authentic and delicious middle eastern food at home every week i cover a new dish from the region i'll break it down so you can replicate it perfectly in your home kitchen consider subscribing if you'd like to see new middle eastern recipes every week now let's jump right in to make these insane chicken charana sandwiches we'll need to build a kick-ass marinade so we get all the right flavors this recipe is designed to taste just like authentic syrian or lebanese chicken shawarma the base for the shawarma is made of a ton of spices and we'll first start off by crushing four bay leaves add them into a mortar and then add in a quarter of a teaspoon of kosher salt next use the pestle to crush your bay leaves with the salt if you have a high-powered blender or a spice grinder use that to crush the bay leaves until you are left with really small pieces that look like this next up add in one and three quarter teaspoons of salt to bring our total amount of salt up to two teaspoons then we'll add all our ground spices we'll go in with a teaspoon each of ground cumin garlic powder bojarato allspice and onion powder follow them up with half a teaspoon each of chili flakes ground coriander cinnamon smoked paprika turmeric black pepper ground ginger and cloves finally you'll add in a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg and ground cardamom whisk it all together until well combined and it looks like this for the wet ingredients we'll add one cup of yogurt to a large mixing bowl we'll also add in three tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice and follow that up with one tablespoon of white vinegar next up we'll add one tablespoon of olive or vegetable oil we'll also add in four to six minced garlic cloves finally we'll add in all of the spice mix from earlier and mix the combine into a uniform mixture i forgot to add tomato paste at the start so i added in four tablespoons now then mix to incorporate you should add it with the rest of the wet ingredients once mixed my marinade was ready and here's what it looked like now i'll prepare the chicken and i'm using one kilogram or two pounds of boneless chicken thighs for this recipe i chose them because i prefer the flavor and the texture of thighs but you can of course use chicken breast or a mix of both these chicken thighs have already been de-boned and had their skin removed so the first step we need to do is to flatten the thighs out as the meat on the thigh isn't that well distributed and if it isn't a uniform thickness it will cook at different speeds the first technique you can use is to butterfly any large parts by slicing it with a knife horizontally this will take a thick piece of meat and split it into two thinner ones with the thigh it's easiest to start in the center but in a breast you can start at either end you should aim to have your chicken about half a centimeter or a quarter of an inch thick the second technique you can use is hammering your chicken with a meat mallet i always cover my meat with plastic before hammering as you don't want bacteria flying all around your kitchen you'll hammer it all around the thigh until you reach a similar thickness of half a centimeter or a quarter of an inch thick i actually prefer this method because it can be really difficult to butterfly smaller pieces of the thighs your chicken should look like this when done whether you butterflied it or hammered it now all that's left to do is to add the chicken to the marinade once it's all in the bowl vigorously mix it all together and don't be afraid to get in there with your hands and really work the chicken you want to make sure every single piece has been thoroughly coated in the marinade when yours looks like this cover the bowl with some plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge to marinate overnight for a minimum of 12 hours the next day you'll see the color has changed and the marinade will have filled the chicken with flavour now they're ready for cooking the real way shawarma is cooked is by rotating it vertically on a spit and as each side cooks is shaved into thin pieces that lends texture to the shawarma in the form of delicate pieces of meat and flavor in the form of a grilled and lightly charred exterior you can of course grill your shawarma in a pan and get a nice result but it's hard to get the same texture and flavor if your meat is in direct contact with the pan that's where my technique comes in we'll first cut the chicken into thin strips then cook it using direct heat but without any actual surface contact to get a more authentic taste and texture to do this technique we'll need some barbecue skewers which can fit across the length of a baking dish place the chicken thigh face down on your chopping board and using a really sharp knife cut it into strips about half a centimeter or a quarter of an inch thick the thinner the pieces the more this will taste and feel like real shawarma once you've sliced your thigh take one of the skewers and we'll insert it on one side of the thigh use the tip of the skewer to pierce each strip and push it through the meat until you have all of the strips attached to the skewer once you've completed one side we'll take another skewer and go to the other side of the chicken thigh and push it through there the idea here is to stretch your strips of chicken across these two skewers when the whole thigh is on the skewer push it to the end and make sure there's no gaps between your strips the chicken will look and feel slightly compressed and that's exactly what we want repeat the process of slicing and skewering your chicken thighs until you have filled up your skewer most of the way and it looks like this i was left with three full skewers of sliced chicken strips if you wanted to grill these over some charcoal you'd get an amazing flavor and texture but i'll be cooking mine under the grill or broiler in my oven to show you how it can easily be done at home line a baking dish with foil and then place your skewer so they are sitting on the edge of the tray and laying across it but the chicken is not touching the foil below your show armor strips should be floating suspended over the foil but it's fine if a few edges aren't when ready to cook place your tray inside your oven with the broiler or grill on medium keep an eye on them and after about three to five minutes they should have browned slightly when that happens take the tray out and rotate the skewer so the underside is now facing up place them back in the oven and give them another three to five minutes then take them out and rotate once more after two to three minutes they should be done and you can remove them and set aside obviously every broiler or grill is different so i recommend cooking these until they reach a temperature in the center of 74 celsius or 165 fahrenheit it's key here to not overcook your chicken here's what mine looked like straight out of the oven of course you don't have to use this technique and you would still get pretty good results since most of the flavor comes from the marinade one method you can use is placing the whole thighs in a preheated grill pan and flipping them every three minutes until they are charred on each side another method would be to cut your chicken into strips before cooking but i find that this results in the shawarma being over flavoured and you can't really taste the actual chicken here's what the chicken looks like from all three cooking methods side by side on the left is the pan grilled one that i've chopped up in the center i'm removing some of the chicken we grilled in the oven from the skewers and on the right are some of the strips that i had pan fried the one that was grilled whole has a nice and juicy center and nice color on two sides the only thing that's missing is a bit of texture as it's really soft the strips that were grilled in the oven are also really juicy while having the added benefit of being super thin and slightly crisp on the top and bottom which matches the texture of rio shawarma finally we've got the pan fried strips and although they are really juicy i feel they just have too much flavor on them from cooking in their own liquid to me chicken shawarma is always served in a sandwich but some people also eat it over ice for an authentic sandwich you'll need to make some tum and shata or chilli and garlic sauce i covered the recipes for two manchata in last week's video and you can click the link in the corner to watch how i made them here's how you put together an authentic chicken shawarma sandwich first you start with thin flatbread the correct choice is sodge which has a bit of stretchiness and bite it's hard to find fresh outside of the middle east so the next best option is either lavash or lebanese bread whatever you choose it has to be paper thin my lavash was huge so i sliced it in half next on goes a large amount of tom or lebanese garlic sauce you can't make sure i'm a sandwiches without it and using hummus instead is a cardinal sin spread the garlic sauce out over the center three quarters of your bread and place a little on the edge to help seal the sandwich next you add your chicken and you should be placing a generous amount in the sandwich place it in a line along the center and if it's all facing the same direction rolling the sandwich will be easier next up is the pickles and you'll need to add a good amount of salted cucumber pickles salty cornichons work good if you can't find lebanese pickles some people also add pickled turnip sliced tomato or lettuce but to me the classic shawarma only has the pickled cucumbers added to it the final component that goes in is shatter or chili sauce of which i'm adding a generous amount to the sandwich to roll the sandwich fold both sides of the bread in over the filling and towards the center then lift off the bottom part of the bread and roll it over the fillings to the top collect the corners in towards the center and then roll the final bit at the top the next step is to wrap the sandwich in some greaseproof paper so we can press it in a griddle i actually think the paper is unnecessary but it helps stop you from making a mess preheat a panini press or grill pan and add your sandwich to it i placed a pot full of water on top of the sandwich to weigh it down grill it for about 30 to 60 seconds then turn it over and grill the other side for another 30 to 60 seconds until grill marks form finally we can slice it in half and take a look at the beautiful cross section i don't think you could get better chicken shawarma sandwiches at home without buying a shawarma rotisserie and frankly this really isn't that hard to make the skewering of the chicken is a bit of a faff but it's really worth it and it gives you a texture that's so close to real shawarma i believe real shawarma is holy so i don't add anything extra but the two common add-ins that are done throughout the middle east are chips and crisps or fries and chips for you americans they add a bit of squish or crunch that some people enjoy though for me i'm happy without it one last thing this shawarma is great served as a build your own platter if you have guests coming over and the oven grilled version looks really impressive consider making it for your next taco tuesday or shawarma saturday if you want to change things up now let's see how it turned out so first things first we need to figure out which version of the chicken is best these are the strips that were fried in the pan this is the one that was grilled whole and these are the ones that were placed under the broiler in the oven so if we're talking taste then the winner goes to the oven grilled and that's because you get the perfect amount of chaat and caramelization on every single chicken strip because they're cut so thin and cooked packed together you get a lot more of the chicken flavor as well these will be perfect cooked on a bbq finally in terms of ease the obvious winner is grilled whole and that's because there isn't much work if any you just grill them whole and then chop them up i'll say if you have the time do the oven grilled one as it's close to authentic shawarma in that it's so thin and you get the real char if you want something quick and simple then do the pan grilled one now it's time to see what they taste like in a sandwich i'm a bit of a shawarma purist so my sandwich has just four fillings the chicken the pickles the garlic sauce and the chili sauce just like i'd have it in cairo now it's time for the taste test if i close my eyes it's almost as if i'm standing on the corner of syria street in cairo eating my favorite chicken shawarma from my favorite syrian shawarma place that's how good this recipe is the combination of the chicken the sauces the pickles and the bread is just spot on all the flavors go together perfectly and make this into an amazing sandwich if you want to make the best chicken shawarma sandwich of your life then you have to give this recipe a try thanks for watching and if you enjoyed this video then don't forget to like share and subscribe as it really helps the channel as usual all the ingredient amounts and directions are in the description box below and i'll be back next week with another recipe you

Channel: Middle Eats

Views: 804,337

Keywords: Middle Eats, how to make shawarma garlic sauce, homemade chicken shawarma recipe, chicken shawarma recipe at home, how to make shawarma at home, Homemade Chicken Shawarma, Chicken Shawarma Sandwich, Lebanese Shawarma Recipe, Syrian Shawarma Recipe, Grilled Shawarma, Homemade shawarma, Grilled Chicken Shawarma, Oven chicken shawarma, Chicken shawarma sandwiches, How to make Chicken Shawarma sandwich, Chicken shawarma recipe, Oven shawarma recipe, How to make shawarma

Id: kmjkkapeCX4

Length: 13min 35sec (815 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 11 2020