Vegetarians turn away, it's Shawarma time!
Walk through the towns and cities of The United Arab Emirates after 7pm and you will be able to smell the distinct, amazing aroma of the simplest of snacks, and without doubt the best one; the Shawarma, cooking in just about every street. This is one of my very favorite Arabic ‘fast food’ meals and it’s just too good not to share with you.
The Shawarma is an Arabic meat tracing back to its origin in Turkey where it was called ‘Cevirme’, translated into English this means ‘turning’. The meat used is primarily lamb, chicken, beef or a mix of all three that is usually cooked on a vertical rotisserie spit. Many locals and chef’s say the best flavors develop when it is cooked on a horizontal spit over a charcoal flame, but due to ‘sidewalk’ space outside restaurants, vertical gas rotisseries are much more common.
There are two ‘secrets’ to enjoying the very best of Shawarma meals and the first one is the marinade.
While the Shawarma is simple in idea the preparation process is not and is a very lengthy procedure starting with the meat marinade which typically consists of an enormous amount of garlic, yogurt, ginger, lemon, limes, bay leaves, cinnamon, nutmeg, spicy paprika, black pepper and vinegar. The meat can be left to marinate for as long as two days, especially if it’s beef, lamb or goat. It is then stacked alternating strips of fat and meat onto the spit at a 1kg fat to 40kg meat ratio. If it’s a vertical spit the meat is shaped into a cone and then rotated in front of the flame or over coals for many many hours. Each skewer can hold up to a whopping 60kgs of meat and most restaurants will use this up in just one night, that’s one heck of a lot of meat!
To serve, cooked shavings are sliced off with a huge flexible knife or a small circular saw and caught on a round tray under the cone where it collects some of the delicious cooking juices, the remainder of the block of meat continues to rotate on the spit as it’s carved.
Shawarma is, as I mentioned, a typical Arabic ‘fast food’ and as such is usually served in a pita bread wrap with a salad of tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumber and accompanied with pickled turnips and French fries. For the larger appetite it can be served on a platter as an attractive alternative.
Now this brings me to the second secret to the getting the best shawarma; NO shawarma, in my opinion, is complete without the delicious garlic paste, aka Toum, that is spread onto the pita bread sides or served in a dip dish if you’re eating shawarma as a meal on a plate. Non garlic lovers beware, this tasty snack is loaded, not just in the paste but also the marinade with this amazingly pungent bulb.
Personally I make the garlic paste by blending three completes heads of garlic in my processor until the garlic is very well chopped and looks ‘pasty’. I add olive oil, not vegetable as it has a far stronger taste, in a very thin trickle until I get a beautiful smooth quality paste, add a little lemon or lime juice for flavor and season to taste. Smother this on the inside of the pita bread, then the meat, salad and fries and ‘Bingo’ you have the best of fast foods out there, the Shawarma.
If you haven’t delved in this culinary delight yet, do yourself a favor and tuck in, you will not be disappointed.
