Shawarma at home: cooking recipes and ingredients

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Perhaps one of the most popular and simplest dishes in cooking is shawarma (aka shawarma). At home, this hearty and fragrant snack can be made quickly. And there are countless cooking options and recipes! And now it is worth considering the most famous.

Traditional Arabic sauce

Before we move on to the story of the cooking process, we need to consider several recipes for shawarma sauce. Everyone knows that this is a snack that came to us from the East. So first of all we will talk about the preparation of traditional Arabic sauce. You will need:

• low-fat sour cream - 1 cup;
• finely chopped green onions - 50 grams;
• garlic - 3 cloves;
• curry - 1/3 teaspoon;
• small pickled cucumber - 1 piece;
• vegetable oil - 3 tablespoons

All you need to do is crush the garlic well, chop the cucumber into small cubes, and then mix all the listed ingredients in a separate container. Then let it brew (30 minutes is enough), andcan be used.

Turkish Tomato Sauce

You should definitely try to cook it. Shawarma Sauce Recipe includes the following ingredients:

• onions - 2 pieces;
• tomato paste - 3 tbsp;
• Bulgarian sweet pepper - 1 piece;
• olive oil - 2 tbsp;
• fresh cilantro and dill - half bunch each;
• red and black ground pepper - 0.5 tsp each;
• ground coriander - 1 tsp

Spicy sauce doesn't take long to make. First you need to peel and wash the onion, then randomly chop it and put it in a blender bowl. Do the same with bell pepper. It is important to clean it from the stalk, core and all seeds. Only the pulp is needed.

Also add randomly chopped cilantro and dill, as well as all other ingredients, to the blender. Then turn it on at full power and wait a bit - you should get a homogeneous aromatic mass. You can try it for s alt. Everything right? Then you can pour the sauce into a container and leave to infuse. Not? Then you need to add s alt and beat a little more with a blender.

Ingredients for the classic version

And now we can talk about how shawarma is prepared at home. For two servings, you will need the following products:

• thin fresh lavash - 2 pieces;
• fresh cabbage - 150 grams;
• chicken fillet - 1 piece;
• cucumbers (fresh or pickled) - 2 pieces;
• Korean carrot– 150 grams;
• tomato - 1 piece.

Traditional shawarma is made from these ingredients. The recipe with chicken is universal - such a dish will appeal to anyone. Many people also add grated hard cheese, although oriental culinary specialists do not consider this to be appropriate. However, this is a matter of taste. If you want, you can also use cheese pita bread: shawarma will turn out more fragrant.

Cooking process

First you need to marinate the chicken. For this you will need:

• s alt - 2 pinches;
• ground red pepper - 1 tsp;
• paprika - 2 tsp;
• granulated garlic - 2 tbsp;
• cayenne pepper - 1 tsp;
• chicken seasoning - 2 tsp;
• vegetable oil - 50 ml.

The fillet should be cut into 4 slices. S alt each of them, sprinkle with garlic, paprika, pepper and seasoning. Put the pieces in a separate container, season with vegetable oil and mix well. Leave on for at least 15 minutes.

While the bird is marinating, you can start preparing other ingredients: cut the tomatoes and cucumbers into rings, finely chop the cabbage.

Then you need to fry the chicken. Pour a grill pan (a regular one will do) with oil, lay out the pickled slices. Fry until golden brown on both sides, put on foil and roll up. Give it 5 minutes to make it juicier. At this time, you need to blot the pan with a napkin and remove the remains of the fillet from it.

Shaping and wrapping

Then everything is simple. Grease a sheet of pita bread with sauce, and then in layers - stuffing: chopped chicken, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes and carrots. Top again with sauce for juiciness. If it is decided to add cheese, it should be the last one.

How to lay out the stuffing correctly? It is necessary to step back from the right edge of the space a little more wide than the filling will take. Leave it free - this part will cover the area filled with ingredients. The filling should take about 1/7 of the pita bread. The top and bottom edges must also be left free (4 cm is enough).

It remains only to wrap the almost ready shawarma in pita bread. Cover the filling with the right, top and bottom edges. And then just tightly roll it into a roll. The filling will not fall out, because it will be covered with pita bread from all three edges. If there is a fear that it will unfold during frying, then you can carefully fix the seam with two toothpicks.

Then it remains only to send to the pan, on a slow fire, under the lid. Enough 2-3 minutes on each side. Delicious shawarma will warm up completely and will not burn.

Vegetarian shawarma

Not all people eat meat. But many without it cannot even imagine a real shawarma! Well, in the traditional version, it includes meat, but it can be done in a different way. To prepare three vegetarian snacks you will need:

• thin lavash - 3 pieces;
• big cucumber;
• mushrooms - 200 grams;
• large dense tomato;
• Adyghe cheese - 300 grams;
• two sheets of Beijingcabbage;
• a pinch of coriander.

Despite the lack of meat, this shawarma at home will turn out to be very satisfying. The main sources of energy value in this case are mushrooms and cheese. By the way, you can replace it with seitan, it will also turn out delicious.

This simple shawarma is prepared according to the above principle. Special attention should be paid only to cheese. It must be mashed with a fork and fried in a frying pan lightly greased with vegetable oil, sprinkled with coriander.

Shawarma with minced meat: ingredients

Another well-known variant of the dish, which cannot be left unsaid. At home, minced shawarma is prepared as simply as the types of dishes already mentioned above, but it takes a little more time. The products needed are as follows:

• thin lavash - 2 pieces;
• 300 grams ground beef;
• two fresh cucumbers;
• one large carrot;
• onion head;
• a little vegetable oil.

In addition to the above, you will need a marinade. To prepare it, you need the following ingredients:

• pure cold water - 100 ml;
• vinegar - 0.5 tsp;
• vegetable oil - 2 tablespoons;
• soy sauce - 2 tbsp;
• sugar - 0.5 tsp;
• pepper and s alt to taste.

You can make any sauce, but if you focus on the composition of the shawarma, then tomato is best.

Cooking

First you need to cook juicycrispy onion. It should be peeled and cut into half rings, and then marinated. You need to put it in a bowl and pour on top of a homogeneous mixture of water, vegetable oil, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, pepper and s alt. In this mass, the onion should marinate for about half an hour.

Then you need to do carrots - peel, wash and grate with long straws. She needs to be sent to marinate with the onion.

The next step is to prepare the minced meat. It must be fried in a greased pan until tender.

The last thing to do is cut the cucumbers and make the sauce. Then you can form shawarma.

It is recommended to serve it with some fresh salad. With tomato, for example, seasoned with sour cream. Just none of these ingredients in this version of shawarma.

How to wrap a shawarma in a round pita bread?

This question interests many cooks. In fact, you can wrap shawarma in a round pita bread just as easily as in a rectangular one. The technique and principle is similar to the formation of a Mexican snack called a burrito.

Round lavash is not only convenient, but also practical. Using it, you can evenly cover the filling with pita bread. Then, when eaten, the cake will not lose its shape.

So, you need to take a round pita bread and place the filling in its lower third, indenting. Cover the sides with the edges of the cake. Then tuck the loose bottom. And then just roll everything up. You need to move from the bottom up, carefully picking up the filling and lightly tamping it.

At the very end, you need to press down the filling. edgetucked in such a way that the seam is in the middle of the pita bread. If that doesn't work, you can use the previously mentioned toothpick hack.

Unusual shawarma options

If you study various author's recipes for this dish, you will not be surprised by the variety. It turns out that there are such types of shawarma:

• With pineapple and chicken. Served with hummus.
• With crab sticks, fresh cucumbers and meat.
• With boiled egg or finely chopped omelet.
• With fried potatoes. This version, however, is more reminiscent of souvlaki.
• With fried fish and onions.
• With rice.
• With duck or turkey.
• With Beijing or cauliflower.
• With barbecue or hunting sausages.
• With the addition of minced apples and cottage cheese.

And in what only people do not marinate meat before cooking! Beer, wine, natural citric acid with mineral water, orange juice, mustard, kefir… There are many options. Surely many of them have an original taste, but now I would like to list more traditional recommendations for preparing this oriental dish.

Cooking secrets

Finally, I would like to note a few nuances, taking into account which you can make a truly delicious shawarma. The recipe with chicken, of course, is universal, but sooner or later you will want something new. So here are some helpful tips:

• To make the taste rich and multifaceted, you need to make a filling from several types of meat. Prepare ground pork and beef with chicken and lamb, if possible, then soak it in Arabic spices.
• It is recommended to fry meat on tail fat. It will become very tender and spicy.
• It is best to rub the garlic for the sauce together with spices, with a little vegetable oil added.
• A more fragrant and festive-looking sauce will turn out if you add cilantro and basil to it.
• If it is decided to add cheese, then it is worth putting it in the first and last layer. It will melt on both sides and form a delicious filling shell.
• It is also convenient to cook shawarma in pita (hollow cake). You can make the incision as you like, and it is much more pleasant to eat it in terms of aesthetics.
• Instead of meat, you can use sausage. Salami is better. Some kind of "Doctor's" will do, but then it will have to be well fried.
• If you want to make shawarma as spicy and spicy as possible, you can not skimp on spices. Add spicy ketchup, adjika or mustard, more crushed garlic, curry, hot pepper to the sauce. And finely chop the chili or jalapeno into the filling. But here, too, it is important not to overdo it.

Well, as you can see, making shawarma is a simple, interesting and creative process. This dish loves experiments, so you can turn on the fantasy to the fullest.