Shawarma: Maker's envy, eater's delight!
Ok, raise your hands all those who aren't crazy about shawarma. Well, no hands up, except for those few vegetarian keralites who can't bear the thought of not eating idli saambar for every meal.
And if any of you are thinking of surfing the Internet to search for what Shawarma is, please don't bother reading further. The first lesson for you is, open your eyes and live.
In the Middle East, shawarma (pita bread sandwich, with beef, lamb or chicken, similar to a Greek gyros or a British donner kebab served with sesame paste) is one thing that can give tissue paper some good competition, at least as far as sales are concerned!
No matter where you go, unless you are wandering around the desert sand dunes, you can spot the shawarma shops by their massive towering logs of revolving meat and their vertical grills that are sizzling the rawness away.
Doesn't matter if they are Arabic, British, American, Filipino or Indian, all of them are hooked on to this Arab delicacy.
A blog site - www.mahmood.tv/index.php/blog/739 - only confirms it. Check this out.
'Steve The American': "OK, I have five tickets to the Powerball lottery tonight for $177 million. If I win, I will fly out to the Middle East ... My first act will be to declare National Shawarma day: Free shawarmas for everyone! And some Diet Cokes to wash them down."
Well, this is really just one of the many sites where people from all the world over have assured they're crazy about shawarma and will go to any extent to get a bite of the sandwich, again and again.
Several people have put up various recipes of the roll on the Internet. But the truth is, you cannot make authentic shawarma unless you have the upright vertical shawarma cooker (called makina - machine in Arabic) which costs about "QR5,000".
Even if you could afford it, believe it or not, standing 10 minutes behind that burning hot cooker will probably make you start hating shawarma.
So, stick to your favourite shawarma shop.
Bhaktawar, a Nepalese, came to Doha a year ago. His job was just one - to stand behind that hot cooker and make shawarma. In Tasty Chicken, in the Najma area, where Bhaktawar works, he gets the highest salary among all the other waiters and workers.
"It's the most demanding job," he says. "Even right now if you increase a person's salary and ask him to be a shawarma maker, he will refuse," Bhaktawar adds.
"When you have to stand behind the makina in the scorching heat of this place and cook shawarma, then you'll know why I expect a higher salary than the rest."
Bhaktawar says it took him about two months to master the art of making shawarma. "Initially, I used to faint almost everyday because of the heat coming directly at me."
A shawarma shop purchases 15 to 20kg of chicken, beef and lamb everyday. "It never goes waste. All of it is over by 10.30 at night," says the owner of another eating joint nearby.
At most shops, the shawarma maker starts slicing the meat one by one into thin pieces at about 1.30 in the afternoon and builds up logs of them on the cooker.
"The procedure takes about an hour," Bhaktawar says.
You'll be surprised that at every shawarma shop your sandwich "will taste different" because every shop has its own style of making it.
"It's the difference in the spices," Bhaktawar explains. "An Arab joint will make it differently, and an Indian joint will make it differently, with a little more spice, whereas many others make it bland."
The owner of the Marmara Al Istanbul restaurant, one of the more famous ones in Doha, in the Al Sadd area, without a moment's thought refused to give out the "secret" of his shawarma recipe.
"No information about our shawarma," he says. "It's top secret."
"You want shawarma, I'll give you shawarma. But no information about it."
He probably thought we were trying to steal his recipe and had plans to open another shop to give him a few sleepless nights!
But the nearby Rojina restaurant, more popular among Egyptians, has no problems revealing the secrets of their shawarma.
"We buy five kilograms each of regular beef and chicken. Every night once the restaurant is closed we slice the meat up into pieces and keep it in the freezer. The next afternoon, we assemble it on the stick," says Mahmood Jamal, a professional shawarma maker from Egypt. He says he was selected out of about 50 professional shawarma makers from Egypt who were being tested for the job.
Rojina makes the shawarma especially for Egyptians, who "like more of liver, kidney and brain."
Jamal too says the heat coming directly on to the shawarma maker can be torturous, "but that's why I have put one of the air conditioners in the restaurant especially for me. After all, the job has to be done and someone's got to do it."
Rojina makes "a minimum profit of QR 150" just on shawarmas. "It's a great business," Jamal says, adding, "Any restaurant in Qatar, which does not sell shawarmas, whether good or bad, cannot make much profit."
A shawarma-crazy blogger asks: "Our homework before the next meeting is to find out why none of the shawarma joints serve shawarmas during the day time."
Here's the answer, according to shawarma makers: "Most of the buyers come only in the evenings. People don't want to eat shawarma in the morning. Simple."
Another blogger makes a suggestion: "Judge your restaurant by the size of their shawarma towers. Usually, if they have a huge one, it means lots of people go there."
That the demand for shawarma is humungous in this region is a fact, which can be believed because of a telling statement of the famous Al Quds restaurant owner. "There are so many shawarma shops. But there is no competition. Everywhere the meat gets over by 10.30 at night," he assures. "On a bad day, it might finish off by 11.30."
IF YOU'RE DYING TO MAKE SHAWARMA AT HOME -
Ingredients
* 1/2 pound lamb meat, cut into strips
* 1/2 pound chicken breast, cut into strips
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom seeds
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3 cloves garlic, minced
* 1/2 onion, minced
* 1 bay leaf
* 1/2 cup lemon juice
* 1/2 cup vinegar
* 6 large sections pita bread
* 2 tomatoes, chopped
* 6 slices pickled eggplant (optional)
* 3 serrano or jalapeno chilies, stems and seeds removed, chopped
* Yoghurt to taste
METHOD
Place meat in a glass bowl. In another bowl, combine the spices, salt, garlic, onion, bay leaf, lemon juice, and vinegar, stir well, and pour it over the meat. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
Drain meat from the marinade and pat dry. Grill meat over a hot charcoal or gas fire until done, about 10 minutes, turning often. Divide meat into pita bread sections, add tomatoes, pickled eggplant if using, chilies, and a tablespoon or more of yoghurt.
And if any of you are thinking of surfing the Internet to search for what Shawarma is, please don't bother reading further. The first lesson for you is, open your eyes and live.
In the Middle East, shawarma (pita bread sandwich, with beef, lamb or chicken, similar to a Greek gyros or a British donner kebab served with sesame paste) is one thing that can give tissue paper some good competition, at least as far as sales are concerned!
No matter where you go, unless you are wandering around the desert sand dunes, you can spot the shawarma shops by their massive towering logs of revolving meat and their vertical grills that are sizzling the rawness away.
Doesn't matter if they are Arabic, British, American, Filipino or Indian, all of them are hooked on to this Arab delicacy.
A blog site - www.mahmood.tv/index.php/blog/739 - only confirms it. Check this out.
'Steve The American': "OK, I have five tickets to the Powerball lottery tonight for $177 million. If I win, I will fly out to the Middle East ... My first act will be to declare National Shawarma day: Free shawarmas for everyone! And some Diet Cokes to wash them down."
Well, this is really just one of the many sites where people from all the world over have assured they're crazy about shawarma and will go to any extent to get a bite of the sandwich, again and again.
Several people have put up various recipes of the roll on the Internet. But the truth is, you cannot make authentic shawarma unless you have the upright vertical shawarma cooker (called makina - machine in Arabic) which costs about "QR5,000".
Even if you could afford it, believe it or not, standing 10 minutes behind that burning hot cooker will probably make you start hating shawarma.
So, stick to your favourite shawarma shop.
Bhaktawar, a Nepalese, came to Doha a year ago. His job was just one - to stand behind that hot cooker and make shawarma. In Tasty Chicken, in the Najma area, where Bhaktawar works, he gets the highest salary among all the other waiters and workers.
"It's the most demanding job," he says. "Even right now if you increase a person's salary and ask him to be a shawarma maker, he will refuse," Bhaktawar adds.
"When you have to stand behind the makina in the scorching heat of this place and cook shawarma, then you'll know why I expect a higher salary than the rest."
Bhaktawar says it took him about two months to master the art of making shawarma. "Initially, I used to faint almost everyday because of the heat coming directly at me."
A shawarma shop purchases 15 to 20kg of chicken, beef and lamb everyday. "It never goes waste. All of it is over by 10.30 at night," says the owner of another eating joint nearby.
At most shops, the shawarma maker starts slicing the meat one by one into thin pieces at about 1.30 in the afternoon and builds up logs of them on the cooker.
"The procedure takes about an hour," Bhaktawar says.
You'll be surprised that at every shawarma shop your sandwich "will taste different" because every shop has its own style of making it.
"It's the difference in the spices," Bhaktawar explains. "An Arab joint will make it differently, and an Indian joint will make it differently, with a little more spice, whereas many others make it bland."
The owner of the Marmara Al Istanbul restaurant, one of the more famous ones in Doha, in the Al Sadd area, without a moment's thought refused to give out the "secret" of his shawarma recipe.
"No information about our shawarma," he says. "It's top secret."
"You want shawarma, I'll give you shawarma. But no information about it."
He probably thought we were trying to steal his recipe and had plans to open another shop to give him a few sleepless nights!
But the nearby Rojina restaurant, more popular among Egyptians, has no problems revealing the secrets of their shawarma.
"We buy five kilograms each of regular beef and chicken. Every night once the restaurant is closed we slice the meat up into pieces and keep it in the freezer. The next afternoon, we assemble it on the stick," says Mahmood Jamal, a professional shawarma maker from Egypt. He says he was selected out of about 50 professional shawarma makers from Egypt who were being tested for the job.
Rojina makes the shawarma especially for Egyptians, who "like more of liver, kidney and brain."
Jamal too says the heat coming directly on to the shawarma maker can be torturous, "but that's why I have put one of the air conditioners in the restaurant especially for me. After all, the job has to be done and someone's got to do it."
Rojina makes "a minimum profit of QR 150" just on shawarmas. "It's a great business," Jamal says, adding, "Any restaurant in Qatar, which does not sell shawarmas, whether good or bad, cannot make much profit."
A shawarma-crazy blogger asks: "Our homework before the next meeting is to find out why none of the shawarma joints serve shawarmas during the day time."
Here's the answer, according to shawarma makers: "Most of the buyers come only in the evenings. People don't want to eat shawarma in the morning. Simple."
Another blogger makes a suggestion: "Judge your restaurant by the size of their shawarma towers. Usually, if they have a huge one, it means lots of people go there."
That the demand for shawarma is humungous in this region is a fact, which can be believed because of a telling statement of the famous Al Quds restaurant owner. "There are so many shawarma shops. But there is no competition. Everywhere the meat gets over by 10.30 at night," he assures. "On a bad day, it might finish off by 11.30."
IF YOU'RE DYING TO MAKE SHAWARMA AT HOME -
Ingredients
* 1/2 pound lamb meat, cut into strips
* 1/2 pound chicken breast, cut into strips
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom seeds
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3 cloves garlic, minced
* 1/2 onion, minced
* 1 bay leaf
* 1/2 cup lemon juice
* 1/2 cup vinegar
* 6 large sections pita bread
* 2 tomatoes, chopped
* 6 slices pickled eggplant (optional)
* 3 serrano or jalapeno chilies, stems and seeds removed, chopped
* Yoghurt to taste
METHOD
Place meat in a glass bowl. In another bowl, combine the spices, salt, garlic, onion, bay leaf, lemon juice, and vinegar, stir well, and pour it over the meat. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
Drain meat from the marinade and pat dry. Grill meat over a hot charcoal or gas fire until done, about 10 minutes, turning often. Divide meat into pita bread sections, add tomatoes, pickled eggplant if using, chilies, and a tablespoon or more of yoghurt.
posted by Once the Conman at 6:14 PM
5 Comments:
I tried it at home. It seems the amount of lemon juice is way too much. I ended up eating sour fried meat. I had some shawarma like smell but it was terribly sour. While the acetic acid content of meat that comes from vinegar can evaporate during roasting, citric acid stays in the meat. I am going to try it again, this time completely eliminating lemon juice.
i hate shawarma. and i cant eat a meal without meat. its just too bland for me. i have tried it at least two dozen times. and have never enjoyed it. so my hand is up:)
Good old shawarmas. Even here in London I require at least one or two shawarma-fixes each week.
Best Doha shawrama, off alsadd avenue, they serve "mexican shawarmas." Im just guessing they use a special bbq sauce, regardless its just amazing.
Two mexican shawarmas with extra hot sauce, one large mango/strawberry mixed juice and tissues !! The perfect meal.
HELP PLEASE - i finally broke down and bought a mini autodoner for my home cuz we cant get good shawarma here in baltimore - i need a good recipe that i can use - i love shawarma from famous pita in brooklyn but i dont think they are sharing their recipe - any help would be appreciated - please email yitzkenpo@aol.com - thank you
Excellent article on the whole Shawarma phenomenon. To the famous Al Quds restaurant owner who complains of Shawarma places closing too early, may I give him one word of advice: Habeeb's. Habeeb's of Matar Qadeem stay open til about 2am, and from my experience of living in Qatar, do the best shawarma in town.
Habeeb's:
http://file017a.bebo.com/11/large/2006/09/13/15/8094909a2016480551b972009022l.jpg
While the restaurant owners say that there is no demand for shawarma in the morning, I won't argue with them, but will remark that there was many a morning when I'd eat last night's shawarma cold. A great snack.
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