Shawarma

What's shawarma, you ask? You know those giant meatsicles you always see cooking away on the spit inside Middle Eastern restaurants? That's shawarma. And they make gyros with it. Obviously this recipe is a bit of a variation on the traditional dish since, needless to say, we don't have a spit. Give us time...I'm pretty sure year three is the meat anniversary.



We're always excited when we get to use our fancy new kitchen equipment. While the insanely heavy piece of lava rock that is our mortar and pestle isn't technically fancy, it is fun.



Just mash up some cilantro with garlic, lemon and spices, add olive oil...



...and you've got yourself a delicious, aromatic marinade for your chicken.



We had our usual problem with cooking the meat again - the grill is hot enough that we're getting a nice sear, but the meat is just too thick to cook all the way through without it burning or drying out. Since raw chicken isn't something you want to mess with with, we decided to risk overdoing it.





Now, heating up tortillas on the griddle we can handle.



Check out this awesome hot sauce variety pack that Kelsey brought us back from New Orleans: Garlic, jalapeno, hot, super hot! We had fun sampling them all to figure out which was the tastiest.



Throw the chicken on the tortillas with shredded cabbage and green onions, artistically drizzle on some hot sauce and mayo, and serve it up.



I love me a good gyro. I'd had them before at restaurants with lamb and falafel but this was my first chicken - and homemade - gyro. As tummy-grumble-inducing as these pictures might be, I think I'll leave it to the professionals in the future. It's not that these were bad; they just weren't that good.