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Binging with Babish: Shawarma from The Avengers

Feb 27, 2020
Have you ever tried

shawarma

? There is a

shawarma

place two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it. Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week we're taking a look at the Avengers shawarma. First things first, just like the Palestinian chicken from "Curb Your Enthusiasm", we need to make a yogurt-based marinade. Excuse me while I get the yogurt out of the fridge... Here we go. We're putting two cups of yogurt in this medium glass bowl. And then, both for flavor and browning, we added 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil.
binging with babish shawarma from the avengers
Along with the necessary fresh garlic, eight whole cloves, in fact, crushed like the spirits of The Avengers when they first confront Thanos. I'm not pandering, you're pandering. Anyway, we are seasoning our yogurt mixture with about 1 teaspoon each of ground sumac, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and allspice. If you want extra points, roast them and grind them fresh, but frankly, I'm not in the mood. However, I will grate 1 small onion. Adding it to the party before starting the marinade with the basics: freshly ground pepper and kosher salt. Simply visualize the amount of chicken you are going to marinate and add salt and pepper accordingly.
binging with babish shawarma from the avengers

More Interesting Facts About,

binging with babish shawarma from the avengers...

Speaking of which, chicken thighs. I have to go with the thighs because we're going to simmer this whole thing until it's browned and tender. The chicken breasts are simply not up to par. Go ahead and cover it tightly and let it marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, if not overnight. Time during which we need to make fresh pita bread. This method is courtesy of Chef John, just my hands, culinary brother from another mother. In the bowl of a stand mixer we combine 150 grams of flour, 1 cup of water between 90 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit and one packet of active dry yeast.
binging with babish shawarma from the avengers
Whisk to combine and create a slurry that we will let sit for 20 minutes or until it becomes bubbly and foamy, full of yeast activity. Now we are going to add 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil to the cake, and we are going to weigh an additional 225 grams of all-purpose flour. And you should probably measure this out, but I just added a few pinches of kosher salt. Attach my dough hook, add the aforementioned flour, and knead this guy for 5 to 6 minutes until a soft, pliable dough ball forms. I love saying that. Soft and flexible dough ball. And I would recommend adding the vast majority of the flour, but not all.
binging with babish shawarma from the avengers
And if it's too sticky, if it sticks to the sides of the bowl, add a little more flour until it's a little bit like this. Tasty but not sticky. Anyway, we have our soft, pliable dough ball that we are going to place on a floured surface, form into a ball, and place in a lightly greased glass bowl. Or a non-glass bowl, it doesn't really matter. Simply roll the dough ball a little so that it is evenly coated with oil, cover it, and let it rest in a nice warm room for two hours, or until it doubles in size.
That will give us plenty of time to focus on our shawarma accessories. First: tabbouleh salad. We're going to finely chop maybe 3/4 pound of cherry tomatoes. And thanks to some very clever tips from "Serious Eats" we're going to start by salting these tomatoes. This will help them remove much of the excess moisture, which would otherwise leave the salad a little soggy. So place them in a fine mesh strainer over a measuring cup that we want to store the tomato water in. And we are going to do practically the same thing with some freshly chopped parsley. Hit it with a little kosher salt and we'll put them in a paper towel-lined container.
We don't need to store moisture here, we're just trying to get it out. While both drain for 20 minutes, we are going to chop the remaining ingredients in our tabbouleh. It's a finely chopped cucumber, some finely chopped chives, and some finely chopped mint. This material can be prepared a little in advance, but it is recommended that you leave the tomatoes for the last step if you are preparing it a few days in advance. I'm not entirely sure why, it's what the internet told me to do. That said, I'm eating all of this right now, so let's add the tomatoes, mix a little...
And then we need to add our cooked bulgur wheat that we're going to cook by boiling the preserved tomato. water, 1/4 cup, adding it to 1/4 cup bulgur wheat and letting it sit for an hour. Then, once the grains are nice and appetizing, we'll ignore the dumplings in the foreground. Don't worry, that will come later. And add the bulgur wheat to the tabbouleh, season with a little olive oil, a little freshly ground pepper, kosher salt of course, a little since we already salted our tomatoes and parsley, and sprinkle a little coriander seeds each , allspice, cinnamon and cumin. Mix it up a bit and it's time to refrigerate this guy while we continue ignoring the dough balls in the foreground and make topper number two of three tahini.
This is simply a cup and 1/2 to 2 cups of sesame seeds that we toast in a dry pan, add to a food processor once they have cooled, and process into a thick paste. To which we are going to add a little bit of neutral flavored oil. I'm going with grapeseed oil, you can use sesame oil if you really want to enhance the sesame flavor. And let it process for three to five minutes until it's smooth and creamy like an all-natural peanut butter. And there you have it, tahini, a condiment that will stay deliciously fresh for months, if not years, if kept sealed in an airtight jar.
Now as you can see our dough has doubled in size. And as you can imagine, we're about to get those dumplings going. We dump our dough out onto a floured surface, roll it out into a sort of rectangle, and divide it evenly into 8 pieces using a bench scraper or literally any sharp object you have lying around. Now we're going to form those eight pieces into little balls of dough, thus providing catharsis and understanding to audience members who were confused upon seeing them a couple of minutes ago. Then we will let them rest under a sheet of plastic for about 30 minutes until they double their size again.
Doorbell! You know, something like that. Oh dear, Chef John said "oil your plastic wrap" and I didn't listen. Anyway, it doesn't matter because we're going to take these guys out anyway. I'm putting them to the side so we can put our burner here. And put a frying pan over medium-high heat until it's super hot, so we can fry them. Almost as if we were making tortillas. We spread them nice and thin and let them fall on a very hot surface, letting them bubble a little on one side. You can see the whole piece of bread starting to thicken and then these larger bubbles start to rise, which is a good sign that the bottom is starting to blister and brown.
Check it a little with the spatula and turn it over. Now, if you did everything absolutely perfectly and are very lucky, the pita will rise, creating the signature pocket we all know and love. But even if they don't, they will still be delicious. So let them fry and pile them high on a plate to keep them warm and soft. As we move on to making side dish number three of three, the Tzatziki sauce. This is a very simple sauce made from finely chopped or grated cucumber, some nice thick Greek yogurt, maybe about a cup/cup and 1/2.
Go ahead and add the cucumber and then we'll bring a couple of simpler flavors to the party. How about the juice of a whole lemon and, of course, one of my favorite fresh herbs, dill? Let's finely chop a solid handful. And, since the garlic masher is dishwasher safe, grate a couple of cloves of garlic. This is a great recipe to watch and experiment with because I can guarantee that no matter how crazy the proportions are, it will still be pretty good. And of course, every shawarma I've had in New York City has been accompanied by maddeningly diced tomatoes and sliced ​​cucumbers.
Now you could just bake or roast the chicken, both would be great options. But why not go for something real? For just $89 on Amazon, you can get a shawarma machine you'll never use again. It comes with a delicious spit on which you can impale your marinated chicken thighs. I try to keep them as uniform as possible, but I suspect this takes many years of practice... Or maybe like a long weekend of practice. Anyway, we'll turn this thing on and let it do its job for an hour and a half. Until the outer layer of chicken is fully cooked, golden, crispy and delicious.
Now sometimes shawarma is fried again after being cut from the rotisserie, but I think that's just so restaurants can reuse shawarma that isn't as freshly cut. Anyway, we've replaced our meat column with its revolving plate of spiciness. And finally the time has come to put everything together. We have our variety of vegetables, pita and sauces, and I'm going to fill a pita with a little bit of everything, drizzle some tahini on top and start eating. Now, this is meant to feed some people. and it's also a portable food, so I can't give it the Clean Plate Award.
But I'll give him the Clean Hand award. Because I would take one of these things without even thinking about it. And another after the camera stopped recording... And another the next morning. Do not judge.

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