Today's endeavor: chicken shawarma!

Rezen73

So I typically cook a nice meal on the egg every Sunday. It's "my" day to relax, grill out and/or watch football, and just take it easy.

So today, I decided to take on something that I've wanted to do for a long time: chicken shawarmas.

Anyone who has ever had a shawarma knows that it's very difficult to replicate the taste and especially the texture of the chicken (or beef or lamb) at home. Buying the BGE a few months ago has taken my culinary repertoire to new heights!

I started the pre-prep last night, right after eating some wings I cooked on the egg:



First, I started off by draining some plain yogurt for the tzatziki sauce. At this point, the yogurt had been draining for about 2 hours:



Next, I started the marinade for the chicken:



For the marinade, I used about 1.5 cups of the drained (Greek style) yogurt, 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, juice from 1 lemon, 1/2 cup fresh parsley, 1/4 cup minced garlic, 2 tbsp of re-hydrated oregano, 1 tbsp all spice, 1.5 tbsp cumin (which I ground), 1 tsp sage, a pinch of kosher salt, the seeds from 3 cardamon pods, and a few peppercorns.



Dumped all the dry ingredients in my dedicated spice blender. However, it refused to cooperate (e.g. it was dead) so I used my reserve spice blender (formerly my coffee grinder, hah).



Wet ingredients (sans yogurt) into a mini food processor for a quick mixin'.



Choppity chop!



Marinade complete! Into the fridge for the flavors to mingle before adding the chicken.



Time to prep the chicken thighs! From my discussions with the head chef at a middle eastern restaurant I frequent 2-3 times a week, chicken thighs are the best "cut" of chicken to use when making shawarmas. So chicken thighs it is!



The first "victims" to be prepped.



Prep complete. 10 chicken thighs deboned & skins removed. I didn't bother removing the fat because I knew the fat would safely render away and also serve to lubricate the shawarma stack in ways a marinade never can. I also knew that the fat wouldn't come near it's smoke point since I was planning on doing a low & slow on it.



Chicken thighs now in their highly acidic marinade

At this point, whilst cleaning the kitchen getting ready to prep the tzatziki sauce, I accidentally sliced my finger with my chef's knife. Big ouch, lot of blood. Thankfully no food was contaminated! Like a good soldier, after my wife helped me bandage my finger, I carried on with the tzatziki sauce.



Tzatziki sauce with dill on top. I lost my mind for a few minutes and forgot to include the dill in the food processor when I was blending the greek yogurt, diced cucumbers, lemon juice, EVOO, salt, etc.



Tzatziki sauce all done! Into the fridge for full flavor mingling.

...

On to today!

I had a few extra jalapenos on hand, and some italian sausage links that needed cooking lest I toss them... so I decided to do up some ABT's as a side to my chicken shawaramas.



Prep mode engaged! 1 sausage link, skin removed (I ended up only needing about 1/2 the link for the 4 jalapenos). CaJohn's ghost pepper flakes, Dave's Insanity Spice (habanero flakes), Blair's Death Rain (ground habanero), red pepper flakes, and cracked black peppercorns seasoned the sausage. Stuffed a mix of sharp cheddar cheese & sausage into each jalapeno, and wrapped with Applewood smoked bacon!

But first, I had to hollow out the jalapenos:



Then I could stuff them!



After wrapping them in bacon, I sprinkled some blackening seasoning that I get from a cajun restaurant down the road. I originally only meant to do 3 ABTs but I had 4 slices of bacon and too much sausage. So 4 it ended up being. lol



Anyway, on to shawarma tower production!

I took a skewer that I bought from a local middle eastern restaurant supply store and "measured" the distance from the coal grate at the bottom of the firebox to the top of the cast iron grate, which I demarked with some foil. This would be the drip pan locator. The pita bread you see was freshly baked in a brick oven at the middle eastern restaurant I frequent on Saturday



For the drip pan, I bunched up some foil (for the "base"), then put on a foil pie tin, and placed a potato to stabilize it. This also served to keep the chicken out of the rendered fat and allow air to circulate underneath the shawarma tower. I layered the 10 chicken thighs, alternating the direction they faced. I topped it with a small white onion, in traditional chicken shawarma tower fashion.



Here you can see the shawarma tower on the egg and the ABTs on the perimeter. Originally I planned on using a foil wrapped brick as my shawarma press, but it started raining so my plans were "foiled" :(



I didn't despair though, I enjoyed a nice ice cold Dos Equis while the shawarma tower was cooking



ABT's done!



I love the smell of shawarma in the morning! err, afternoon...



At this point, the shawarma tower is about 1/2 way done. It started raining so I had to cease fire on the pic taking outside! boo! :(

No biggie though, at least I got a couple of "money shots" Here's the shawarma assembly line: Chicken, pitas, tzatziki sauce, greek salad, onions, tomatoes, crushed pomegranate seeds, and hummus!



Bingo bango, good eats!

op2k

Goodness gracious!! That looks awesome....and the pictoral was super as well!

jwr3

Great looking food!

ChargerGuy

Great Looking Shawarma, I can smell it through my screen. :woohoo:

mollyshark

Well I finally bit the bullet oh this last trip to Israel. I bought a shawarma machine...propane fired. Yes, really. I'm an addict. I have gone nuts trying to get shawarma worked out in an egg but there is no way to do the heat from the sides. I thought maybe stack the coals along the side in a screen shaped like a donut, but it burns down and no way to add them again nicely. There is just no way. It should be here next week.

Your recipe is interesting. You forgot one MAIN spice that will keep it from being shawarma unless I missed it looking at your recipe. Turmeric. Called kum-kum in the middle east. A little goes a long way but gives that characteristic color and taste to the meat. I'm a turkey shawarma fan. Maybe we can collaborate on recipes to get it perfect!

mShark

Boogie

Looks amazing. What temp did you cook at?

Little Steven

Rezen73,

Nice looking shwarma. I tried it last year using the holder from a turkey fryer. I stacked breasts and it dried out pretty good.

Steve

Hungry Celeste

Oh, PLEASE post pics of your setup once it arrives...my better half would give his eyeteeth for a schwarma roasting spit. And hey, you can do pork al pastor on the same vertical spit!

eenie meenie

Rezen73, What a joy to read your post! I love shawarma. Your appetizers of wings and ABTs looked great as well. Your photography not only beautiful, but helped me understand the cook.

eenie meenie

Monica, I suppose there are worse addictions, lol. I just love 'souvenirs' like that.

Be sure and post your first cook on your shawarmaizer.(please don't post it on the OT forum or else I might not see it....)

Clavin

I love me a good shawarma. Found a place in Louisville that sells a good one... doubt I would try to duplicate it on the Egg.

I do have one complaint though. Your very detail account of shawarma making left out one key ingredient: two french fries.

I was introduced to shawarmas on the streets of Riyahd, Saudi Arabia. We made special trips to get them. And, for some unknown reason, the shawarmas always had two french fries in them. No more, no less. They contributed nothing to the taste, but I assumed that they were essential.

Thought you'd like to know.

lowercasebill

wow , i am almost speachless, i am not famliar with this dish but it looks fantastic. thanks for posting [with pics] hope your finger is healing. we need a sub forum for cooking injuries,, i have pics of ours :laugh:
bill

Rezen73

If I do shawarma again anytime soon, it'll be on this:

http://www.cuisinart.com/products/countertop/cvr-1000.html

Cuisinart Vertical Rotisserie (can get for like $170 @ Amazon)

Along with the 4-skewer roasting rack:

https://www.cuisinart.com/parts/countertop/cvr-1000.html

Doing the shawarma was a LOT of work, and extremely tasty, but damn it's so much easier paying $4 for one. hahaha

Rezen73

I cooked it at two different temps. Got the egg stable at 275, and cooked it for an hour or so and the internal temperature was around 140. At this point I wanted to crisp out the outside, so I opened up the vents fully and got the temp up to around 550. I only cooked it like this (indirectly mind you) for about 15 minutes. It was raining SUPER hard so I couldn't take any pics, but there were lots of charred little bits on the edges, just like the shawarma shop!

If it were more than just my wife and I eating them (or if it wasn't raining), I would have left the stack on there... but since it's just us two, I brought them all inside. I had to put a few of the lower pieces in the oven to finish, since they weren't quite cooked through. Still tasted unbelievable though

Rezen73

Strange, never thought of putting them in! I've had shawarmas from 3 places here in Houston, and I don't think any of them have put french fries inside them. Maybe it's a regional thing!

Florida Grillin Girl

I am a day late, but I wanted to comment on your post.

It is a very original cook, and it looks like it turned out great. That was a whole day effort, I'm sure and it looks like it was well worth it. Thanks for giving us some new ideas for the egg.

Faith