Chicken: Chicken Shawarma w/ Tahini Sauce

Thankfully, the food got great reviews, especially the tahini sauce and the naan. We marinated the chicken for about 6 hours before we cooked it. We did not have time for the vegetables, but that's just fine because at the gathering there was many different types of food. My husband and I researched this recipe as soon as we were asked to help out, trying to find the Arabian type spices. I've now come to feel that Arabian spiced items are half way between Greek and Indian, because it uses many spices used in Indian cooking but it is very parred down and quite simplistic like Greek. If you notice, the recipe below calls for "mixed spices" however does not state what they are. Hence, we were on the hunt to find what spices to are to be used in Shawarma. Now, there are many different versions of the recipe and after looking at many of them, we saw two spices that were in every one- mace and allspice. So those are what we used. We are very happy with how it turned out. While I did not get photos from the gathering, there was plenty of left overs, so I will be posting once I've cleaned my kitchen...

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/chicken-shawarma/Detail.aspx

Until then, happy eating, enjoy your friends, and don't be afraid to try something new- you just might be surprised!

P.S. The Naan did not survive for photos... But some chicken shawarma did:

Breads: Naan

Last week, some dear friends of mine asked us to help with making authentic middle eastern food for their get-together. It seemed that this week, everything that could go wrong did in regards to our part, since we had planned on making the Naan Wednesday/Thursday.

So here I am it is 5:04 am, still up from the night before, making Naan and marinating some chicken, which most likely, I'll post pictures up on my next post for the recipe of Chicken Shawarma.

I am taking a break at the moment, while I know I am nearly one bowl down of dough, I have another full bowl of dough to go. I am measuring the weight of the dough balls about 2- 2.5 oz. The key to flat bread of any kind is to not over cook it. I am using a steaming method to make sure that the bread does not dry out- that I commonly use when making flour tortillas. You take a small cloth and wet it and then wring it out and put it on top of the bread, effectively steaming it. We also like to measure in weights if we can as it is more accurate and requires less utensils. I got home last night at about 9 pm, taking breaks from cooking, but all in all, we are cooking some very delicious flatbread!

Hopefully I'll be lucid enough to take pictures, but if not, I'll definitely report back!

Have a great day and enjoy your cooking. And remember- Promises are promises, you should honor your commitments.