Chicken Shawarma

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Description:
Shawarma is a meat preparation, were lamb, chicken, beef etc and placed on a Spit(in restaurants) and cooked whole day. This meat can be shaved from the spit and served on a platter with accompaniments or it can be served as a sandwich in a pita bread with toppings of veggies and tahini/hummus etc. Lets see how at home we can prepare shawarma. I`m using Tahini sauce so below is the recipe to prepare it.

Ingredients for  Tahini sauce:
1. Sesame seeds - 60 gms
2. Olive oil - 6 to 7 tspns

Procedure:
Dry roast the sesame seeds on low flame and set aside to cool down. We can use readymade roasted sesame seeds too. When the sesame seeds are cooled transfer to a blender. Start off by grinding them to make a fine powder then slow start adding the olive oil. Add olive oil as much as required to get the perfect consistency for the sauce. Transfer to a bowl and keep it in the fridge.  Its good if the Tahini is made earlier and kept it fridge for sometime before making the shawarma.  Tahini sauce is ready.

Ingredients for Shawarma(filling):
1. Chicken(breast pieces preferred)  - 250gms
2. Chilled garlic pods/normal garlic pods - 4 to 5
3. Chilli powder/paparika - 1tspn
4. White pepper powder - 1tspn
5. Nutmeg powder - 1/2tspn
6. Cardamom  powder - 1/2tspn
7. Curd - 1cup
8. Lemon - 2
9. Lettuce
10. Onion - 1
11. Tomato - 1
12. Coriander leaves
13. Oil
14. Salt to taste

Procedure:
Clean and wash the chicken pieces. Cut the chicken pieces into small strips. Crush the garlic. Take a bowl and add the crushed garlic, chilli powder, cardamom powder, nutmeg, white pepper powder, curd and salt. Mix them well and add the curd. Drop in the chicken and squeeze some lemon juice. Mix properly and make sure all the chicken pieces are coated with the marinate. Check for salt.  Finally pour some oil on top of the chicken and set it aside to marinate for sometime, atleast 1-2 hours or more. Heat a skillet and pour oil. Shallow fry the chicken in batches and when the chicken starts to get golden brown colour transfer to a bowl. Chop some coriander leaves and throw them on the fried chicken.

Chop the onion and lettuce leaves into strips and set aside in a different bowl. Cut the tomatoes too in a circular shape. Squeeze some lemon juice over the onion pieces.

Ingredients for Pita bread:
1. All purpose flour - 2cups
2. Yeast - 1tspn
3. Oil
4. Salt to taste.

Procedure:(Same procedure for making pizza dough)
Take a small bowl and add some warm water to it. Add 1 tspn of yeast warm water and mix . Set it aside to raise(5-10minutes). Take another big bowl, add the flour and salt. Knead the dough slowly. The dough  should be little sticky but not too mushy. Cover the bowl with a cloth/plastic wrap. Gently apply little oilon top of the dough to avoid the formation of skin on the top. Keep it for sometime till the dough doubles(1-2 hrs). Check the dough and it will be raised to double. Knock out all the air inside the dough. Knead again slowly for few minutes. Separate the dough into 4 to 5 portions. Make a ball and leave it on a plate/flat surface for sometime(10-15minutes). You can see the dough balls have raised again. Next take a board and spread some flour over it. Place one ball  and gently press it with your plam and start rolling with a rolling pin. Roll to make a 7-8 inch circle. You can dust the Pita with the flour incase it starts to stick while rolling. Repeat the same process for all the other portions. 

Preheat your oven with the baking tray. If you are using a oven paper/parchment paper you have to spread it on the baking tray for preheating. Keep your baking tray on the lowest rack of your oven while preheating. When the preheating is done, open the oven and with a spatula place a pita on the baking tray. Cook one pita at a time. Bake one side for 4minutes(300deg) and turn over to cook the other side for 2 minutes. You can see the pita will puff up. (Pita bread can be cooked on a iron cast skillet too).  

Repeat for all the remaining pitas.

Stuffing the Pita:

Take out the Tahini from you fridge. Cut open the Pitas that puffed up and  you can see  pockets to fill the stuffings. Incase any pita didn`t puff up completely don`t worry you can place the stuffing on the top and roll. Keep all you veggies, Tahini and chicken stuffing ready.

Take a pita with pocket and apply some Tahini sauce on the sides, then drop in the lettuce leaves, onions, tomatoes and finally the chicken.

 For Pita that didn`t puff up completely just apply the Tahini sauce on the top of the Pita and place the lettuce, onions, tomatoes and chicken then roll one side the bread over the stuffing and use a aluminium foil to wrap around. Repeat for all the remaining Pitas.

Well, chicken Shawarma is ready.