Chicken Shawarma with Zhug sauce & baked chips

I decided to cook this after seeing a photograph I saw from a friend who was visiting Jordan for work. The photo of this Chicken Shawarma he sent was something I had heard of, but never cooked, nor eaten. I wanted to make it straight away, but after research found that it contained a product called 'mastic'. No doubt I could have cooked it without it, but I wanted to be as authentic as I could and found some reasonably priced on Amazon. It arrived a few days later and still I held out on cooking the dish. Partly as it had a few elements and I wanted to ensure I was in a cooking mood and had the time.

Turns out - it didn't take as much time as I thought. And the taste? Wow. It is now my current favourite dish. There are plenty of ingredients and if you rarely buy spices - it'll look like a lot. But I have a good stash of spices and had everything I needed. Particularly now I had the mastic! I SO hope people give this one a go. It is totally worth it!! Absolutely divine. Chicken Shawarma.

So, I marinated the chicken for a full 24 hours. One hour will do but I wanted to give this dish its best possible chance. I made the 'Zhug' (chilli & coriander) sauce, the tahini sauce and the bread and I was good to go! I actually just made chapati, but made them bigger than usual so I could wrap the meat and sauces before griddling; they worked perfectly. You can also buy large flatbreads from most grocery stores.

For the chicken marinade:

Juice & zest of one lemon
1 cup natural yogurt
3 dried bay leaves
6 cloves
seeds from 5 cardamom pods
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
1/2 tsp. mastic
1 tbsp. vinegar
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. all spice
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp tahini
1/4 tsp cardamom seeds
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

In a pestle and mortar, crumble in the bay leaves and add the cardamom seeds and mastic. Pound to a powder. Add the this the rest of the above ingredients in a bowl. Slice the chicken breasts into strips and add to the marinade. Refrigerate for 1-24 hours.

For the tahini sauce:

2 tbsp. tahini
5 tbsp of boiling water
Juice of half a lemon
1 clove garlic crushed with salt

Combine the above ingredients. When you first add the water it will look curdled; just keep stirring and it will be a creamy paste in minutes.

For the Zhug sauce:

2 tsp. black peppercorns
seeds from 5 cardamom pods
1 tsp. caraway seeds
1 tsp. cumin seeds
approx. 50g of fresh coriander
2 large mild green chillies and 2 small hot green chillies
2 cloves garlic
juice from 1 lemon
60 ml of olive oil
pinch of salt

In a dry frying pan, toast the peppercorns, cardamom, caraway seeds and cumin seeds until the release a lovely aroma (don't burn!). Put in a pestle and mortar and bash until fine. Put into a hand blender with the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.

To cook & assemble:

Drain the meat from the marinade and discard marinade. Stir fry the chicken quickly over a high heat for 4-5 minutes until cooked.

Place a flatbread on the counter and spread a line of the tahini sauce. Cover this with a generous line of the zhug sauce. Top with some chicken and roll up the flatbread. Brush with olive oil and place on a hot griddle for 4 minutes each side until crispy. Cut into thick slices.

Serve with hand cut baked chips, red cabbage, pickles, red onion and tomatoes. Simply delicious!