The smell of shawarma brings me back to the streets of Israel. Tender meat marinated in spices, cooking on a spicket. When you order they slice it off into your pita, they might drizzle some tahini sauce over the top add some veggie and then you have perfection! You can make shwarma from lamb, beef, goat or chicken. Sadly I have no way of cooking my shawarma the traditional method so I thinly sliced mine and cooked it in a cast iron skillet. I bought my shawarma spice in the Arab Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. You can make your own easily.
Beef Shawarma
1 1b of chuck roast (grass feed is best)
1 cup yogurt or dairy kefir
3 TBS shawarma spice
2 TBS lemon juice
2 TBS olive oil
Thinly slice your meat. Mix the yogurt/dairy kefir, shawarma spice and lemon juice in a container that has a lid. Add the meat and place on the lid, let marinade for at least four hours or overnight in the fridge. Heat your skillet and add the olive oil. Place as many strips of meat as you can. Cook until there is no pink. Repeat until all the meat is cooked. Discard the marinade.
Serve in a warm pita, top with humus, tahini sauce, cucumbers, tomatoes, parsely and even french fries if you want. Don’t worry there are still more recipes to follow. In the following weeks I will post my pita and tahini sauce recipes as well as a few other Israeli inspired recipes.
Here are a few other Isreali inspired recipes:
Thanks April!
Your Beef Shawarma looks wonderful. The spices sound so interesting, and I love anything served in a pita!
I have some lovely grass fed beef and will be trying this1
I hope you like it! Blessings!
Yu, this looks really delicious. When I lived in Germany, there were a lot of Turkish kebap stands…and I really liked seeing them cut the roasted meat off. It was always perfectly cooked. Now where I lived it was usually served in a “fladenbroat” a flatbread that’s like a really thick pita bread…with carrots and cucumber…and tatsiki sauce or red “hot” sauce. i always chose the red sauce. It wasn’t that “hot” for my American palate, but for Germans it was spicy. Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 🙂
Still sounds good! 🙂