As someone who grew up in the Middle East, I have eaten my fair share of shawarmas throughout my life. But shawarmas in India, it’s rare that I would say I have enjoyed the same taste. Most of them are sloppy or too oily… and shawarma does not need to be oily! Add to that sometimes the chicken is not cooked well or tasteless, I finally began to wonder if I could re-create the taste of the shawarmas I grew up on.
I watched a bunch of videos and recipes online, including the one below:
… and once I got the gist of the process, I began to try making it myself using easy to procure ingredients.
This post is going to be for chicken shawarma but you can use the meat of your choice — beef, mutton or pork (even though pork shawarma isn’t available in the Middle East).
For six shawarma rolls, I used around 600 grams of chicken
I mostly used chicken breasts (two whole pieces) and then a bunch of other pieces of chicken, including thigh, so the meat filling would not be just all fibrous chunks. It doesn’t matter if the meat is boned or not, you’re going to pick the meat off the bone after cooking it anyway.
For the marinate/spice mix — I used the following
Red chilli powder
Turmeric
Ginger garlic paste
Coriander powder
Little bit of cumin powder, cinnamon (powder) and mustard sauce
Salt and pepper
Lemon juice
Olive oil (or any vegetable oil)
The reason I’m not mentioning measurements is because it varies based on the amount of meat you wish to marinate. It’s also up to you how you want your chicken meat to taste. Want a more spicy filling? Add more chilli powder and pepper.
Mix the spices into a paste. (Taste it and make adjustments to your liking). Gently spread the spice mix on the chicken and marinate the meat for at least an hour. Longer you marinate meats, the better it usually tastes. I often leave it overnight now.
Then, grease a baking tray with olive oil or your preferred oil.
Place the marinated chicken meat on the baking tray and then preheat your oven
I baked the chicken in a convection microwave at 190 degree celcius (374° Fahrenheit) for 25 to 30 minutes. I tend to check in between to flip the meats and gently scrape off any spices that would stick to the pan.
If the chicken isn’t 100% well done, don’t fret. The cooking isn’t over.
While the chicken cools off, you can work on the other fillings. Cut up some lettuce (NOT cabbage*) and tomato. You can add them in as is but I like to flavour the vegetables by mixing them in some garlic mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is easy to procure so I use that and it does not taste that different from toum — which is traditionally used in shawarma. Toum is a garlic paste that looks seemingly simple to make but given how much oil and garlic I would need for it to come out right — and the right kind of food processor — I decided instead to use store bought garlic mayonnaise instead.
If you wish try making toum yourself, watch this or the video below:
Back to the chicken. Now, here comes the real time-consuming part. You have to cut up the chicken pieces into small chunks.
Once all diced up, put it all back on the same baking tray and mix the pieces of chicken with the oils left on the pan, which by now are well flavoured
Bake the chicken again for 5 to 10 minutes until the meat is well cooked.
For the wrap, I use this brand of pita bread which is made in Kerala. It’s probably the best brand making such kuboos (Arabian bread) in India.
And now, line up the ingredients…
My brother had brought some Tahini (sesame seed paste) from Dubai so I used that as a spread but it’s not a must. Toum would suffice as well. Even hummus works!
Roll it up and enjoy!
Since trying it for the first time, I have made shawarmas at home four more times and I now rarely buy shawarmas from outside when in Bangalore. The one I make at home feels so much more healthier (less grease, cannot vouch on the nutrition). And now I know it is possible to make the Middle East’s most popular street food at home without the need for the equipment the shops use to grill the meat.
Roasting, baking… whatever you want to call it, this is how I cooked a whole chicken in my convection grill microwave. To be specific, I have an LG convection microwave at home. It has a rotisserie but I decided to bake/roast it on a non-stick, baking pan.
I’ve always wanted to try roasting a whole chicken at home because I got increasingly sick of buying roasted chicken from restaurants — or “grilled chicken” as it’s more commonly called in India. It’s not charcoal grilled, but cooked in a rotisserie (fired up using LPG). Not only were they getting expensive, but the chickens used were small — or they over-cook them so much that they suck the very life and soul out of the poor bird leaving you behind with a very shrunk chicken. Some of these restaurants even use food colouring to make the end product appear more red than required.
I on the other hand, longed for the kind of roast chicken I grew up eating in Bahrain. Simple yet spicy (but not chilli) and generally not a whole lot as far as the marination goes. I looked up a few recipes online, mostly using the keywords “Arabian” or “Lebanese” and got the gist of what the common ingredients used were. I then read up on the simple Western baking recipes for chicken and how the marination was to be done.
Once I had a fair idea, I went out to buy me a whole chicken with skin. You would think it would be an easy task but considering most Indian cooking involving chicken uses skinless chicken, it proved to be rather difficult. After trying the local chicken vendor, I went to HyperCity which is a well stocked, big supermarket in Meenakshi Mall (Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore). They had everything but a whole chicken with skin. So I rode all the way to Auchan (formerly known as Spar) on Bannerghatta Road. They had much better variety and stocked a lot of chickens for sale with the skin intact. All cleaned out and retailing for a very reasonable Rs. 139 a kilo, I bought a bird that weighed about 1.2 kilos (2.6 lbs).
Back home, I washed the chicken at least twice and left it in a bowl so as to drain out as much water as possible.
You’ll be surprised how much water is still left in the chickenNow smear some olive oil and rub it all over the chickenSeparate the skin from the meat by gently pulling it apart. You may need to use a knife to make cuts so that your fingers can be inserted in between the skin and the flesh.
The whole point of doing so is so that you can marinate the flesh with the spice mix under the skin and on to the meat itself and not just smear it all over the outer skin.
My spice mix consisted of chilli powder, pepper, turmeric, coriander powder, cumin powder, garam masala, and some oregano
I’m not mentioning how many spoonfuls of the above spices because it all depends on how spicy you want your chicken. Also, depends on the size of the bird. I wasn’t seeking ‘hot,’ but enough of a spice mixture so as not to end up tasting bland.
I then smeared some ginger-garlic paste along with the spices all over the chicken. Be gentle when using your hands marinating the chicken. Especially under the skin, which can tear easily. I turned the chicken over and got my fingers in as I far I could so as to properly spread the spice mix.
I then rubbed some salt all over. Note: Olive oil, ginger-garlic paste and condiments like oregano already adds a bit of saltiness. So be careful not to over-do it with spoonfuls of salt.
I cut up some capsicum, baby potatoes and onion, and even stuffed the chicken with the same (and a few cloves of garlic). The rest covered up the space on the pan face down on the buttered surface.
Now back to the microwave. Whether you use a convection microwave or a conventional oven, it still needs to be pre-heated. In the LG microwave, that means clicking ‘Mode’ and then turning the dial to the ‘fan’ symbol on the display with the symbols indicating ‘Pre-Heat’ function. Enter, and when you get to the temperatures, it begins at 180° Celsius (356° Fahrenheit) and goes all the way up to 220° Celsius. I always believe slow cooking ensures uniform cooking right through, so I set it to 180° and pre-heated the microwave. When the microwaved “pinged” implying it was now ready, I placed the pan on top of a stand and put it in. I set the timer for 45 minutes and pressed ‘Start’.
At the end of 45 minutes, I took the chicken out and used a knife to poke through the skin and meat. The meat was still a bit pink around the legs, which tends to be the case when roasting a whole chicken. I then flipped the chicken around on its back because the juices that flow out of the bird while cooking made the base of the chicken quite soggy. I didn’t drain the juices from the pan because it’s full of flavour and I have use for it.
I placed the turned chicken back inside the microwave and cooked it for another 30 minutes. By the way, your cooking time will depend on the size of the bird. Larger the meat, obviously the longer its going to take.
All said and done, this was the end result…
Voila!
I cut a sliver and it tasted great! (If I may say so myself)
I made the above chicken for a few friends who had come over and a group of five ate devoured the whole bird leaving behind only bones in such a condition you probably wouldn’t have guessed it was a chicken.
I’m quite happy with the way the microwaved chicken turned out. A few months prior I attempted to cook tandoor chicken (yoghurt marination and all) in the microwave and it was… no, it didn’t quite work. There are some things you just need the right utensils for.
None the less, the success of this led to more attempts and trying different recipes for marination. Like, I mixed the spice powders (not as much though) with dollops of barbecue sauce (brand: American Garden). Logic being, the flavour of hickory is only better accentuated by hot charcoal, something that’s missing when cooking using electricity. So I figured the spices would sweeten the chicken less had I only smeared the chicken with barbecue sauce.
I also tried an even simpler marinate of olive oil, ginger-garlic paste, chopped coriander leaves and salt. Came out swell — jut not something your average Indian will like.
I wanted to roast chicken myself because in Kannur, we now get locally made Lebanese bread (Rs. 20 for 5 pcs) and I had a can of hummus and baba ganoush lying around in Bangalore. Instead of adding more olive oil to the hummus (as is the norm), I use the juices left in the pan and mix it. Dip the Lebanese bread in hummus, dig in to the chicken and… mmmmm.
The success of roasting at home has meant I no longer buy “grilled chicken” from restaurants such as Empire and other places like that. Not only are their food dripping in oil, the quality of their chickens (read: age) leave a lot to be desired.
So there! If you ever thought about roasting an entire chicken at home, let me tell you, it’s do-able if you have a proper oven or a good convection microwave. Have fun cooking!
