I also thought these flavors HAD to be created by professionals, in restaurants, with special equipment and knowledge that I could never be allowed to possess. It was too much. I would never be able to handle it.
BUT GUESS WHAT. I found recipes for all my favorites, and have been coveting them, biding my time until I could finally make them. Which was this weekend. And I made them ALL. I'm not even going to get into a whole thing here, I'm just going to throw the recipes at you and stand back. HERE, CATCH:
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HUMMUS
• 1 can (16 oz) chickpeas – drained, but liquid reserved
• ¼ cup liquid from can of chickpeas, or more as needed
• 3-5 tbs lemon juice, or more to taste
• 2 tbs tahini
• 2 cloves fresh garlic, crushed (or 3 cloves, roasted)
• ½ tsp salt, or more to taste
• 1-2 tbs olive oil, or more as needed
• Dash of white pepper, black pepper, curry powder, or other any other seasonings, as desired
Okay, the tahini. That was a little harder to find than I expected. I suggest you check the fancier grocery stores, as Wal-Mart and Winn Dixie just looked at me funny when I asked for it. Look for a store with a good looking international aisle. We have an Oak Point grocery nearby, they are my go-to place for "weird" stuff. Anyway, you'll be looking for a thick-looking beige paste in a jar. The one I got was about $8 for a jar, but there's enough in there to make it worthwhile. Most of these recipes only call for a few tablespoons at a time.
You can also make tahini by toasting a few cups of sesame seeds, letting them cool down, then blending them in a food processor with a cup or so of olive oil. I don't have a food processor, and I never have that many sesame seeds on hand, so I didn't get to try that one.
Anyway!
Drain the liquid from the can of chickpeas into a bowl, and set aside. In another bowl, whisk the lemon juice and tahini together. Slowly add the reserved chickpea liquid (1-2 tbs at a time) until the mixture is creamy and forms very soft peaks.
Pour the lemon/tahini mixture into a food processor (or blender, if you're me). Add the garlic, and start adding in the chickpeas in batches, about ¼ can at a time. Add in the olive oil, and maybe a little more of the chickpea liquid to keep the blades turning. Add as much oil/liquid as you need, or as much as you want to thin the hummus to your liking.
When all the chickpeas are added and the consistency is how you want it, taste and adjust for seasonings. Add salt, and maybe some pepper or other spices. I used a little white and black pepper, and thought it was fine just like that.
Pour the finished hummus in a serving bowl, and create a dent in the center. Pour in a few spoonfuls of olive oil, and dust the top with curry powder, or you can garnish it with parsley, lemon zest or sesame seeds if you want.
I will tell you this - how much do you like garlic? Because this whole meal used a lot of garlic, and I didn't realize how STRONG the cloves I was using were. MAN, that was some badass garlic. You might want to ease into it, and add a little at a time until it's where you want it. Since I could eat garlic until I breathe fire, I was happy with it! But I'd hesitate to serve what I ended up with to guests, you know?
Also, I don't have a garlic press, so every time a recipe calls for "minced or crushed garlic" I want you to picture me smashing some garlic with a hammer (not a cooking mallet - a HAMMER) on my counter. Because that's what I did.
Very therapeutic. Moving on.
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CUCUMBER SAUCE (TZATZIKI)
• 16 oz (2 cups) Greek yogurt (or plain, full-fat yogurt, strained to thicken)
• Several garlic cloves, minced or crushed - to taste (WHAM WHAM WHAM)
• 1 large cucumber, peeled and de-seeded/hulled
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1-2 tbs chopped dill
This stuff takes a little prep work. EDIT: also, if I were making this for a single meal again, I'd halve the recipe. 2 cups is a lot of this stuff!
If you can’t find Greek yogurt, use plain yogurt, and strain it through a fine mesh strainer for an hour or so beforehand. I just sat my strainer over a bowl, poured in the yogurt and let it sit in the fridge while I prepped a bunch of other stuff. I was amazed how much water came out of it!
Peel the cucumber and slice it in half down the middle, lengthwise. Scoop all the center part with the seeds out, and pat the halves very dry with paper towels. Use a zester or fine cheese grater to grate it very fine. I'm not going to lie - it's weird to grate a cucumber. There's so much water in there that it's like most of it melts away. When you get it grated, you'll have a little pile of watery pulp. Strain or press the pulp as dry as you can get it - I just squeezed a couple fistfuls of it in my hand over the sink, honestly. As long as you end up with no standing liquid and a finely grated pulp, you're fine.
Combine the oil and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Fold the thickened yogurt in slowly, mixing it completely with the oil. Add the garlic, according to taste, and the cucumber and dill. Stir until everything is evenly distributed, and refrigerate at once. The flavors will meld better if refrigerated for a few hours before serving. (But I ate some right out of the bowl after it was freshly made and it was good!)
This stuff is very good on lamb gyros (which I did not cook), and falafel. WHICH I DID.
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FALAFEL
• 1 can (16 oz) chickpeas – drain, but reserve the liquid
• Onion, to taste (about ½ large onion or 1 small one)
• 2-3 cloves fresh garlic
• Fresh parsley, to taste (a handful or two)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 3-5 tbs flour (or more, as needed)
• Salt to taste
Add all ingredients – except the chickpea liquid – to a food processor (OR BLENDER?), and blend well. If the blades have trouble turning (and if you use a blender, THEY WILL), add in some of the chickpea liquid to help. If you add the whole can of liquid (I DID), the batter will be very thin and will not form balls. You can still work with it, but it will be messier. ASK ME HOW I KNOW THIS.
If the batter is firm enough to roll into balls, great! Do that. If the batter is runny, like mine was, you can put it in a strainer and stick it in the fridge for a while to try to thicken it up some. When that fails to significantly help, then you can just say "Screw it," and drop it by spoonfuls into the grease.
Either way, heat about ½ inch oil in a frying pan over medium high heat. When it's hot enough to fry in, DO A TEST RUN WITH YOUR BATTER. Add in a rolled ball (or a dropped spoonful of batter) - does it completely disintegrate? Oh, no. That happens sometimes. Add more flour to your batter and stir it around real good. Try again until the batter holds together and behaves itself. Then you can add in more falafel! - but don't crowd the pan too much.
Fry the patties for a few minutes on each side, until they're brown. If you're working with the runny batter, be careful not to disturb the patties while they cook. They'll start off stuck to the bottom of the pan, but after they brown on that side, they'll lift up easily and you can flip them carefully with tongs. Also, don't make the patties too big or the centers will be mushy. This was a real learning experience, hoo boy.
Drain well on paper towels. Then stick 'em in a pita pocket and dress them up with hummus, tzatziki and veggies.
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One more time! This one had to be marinated overnight, so I made the marinade and sauce when I made everything else, but we ate it the day after. With the leftover hummus and tzatziki. It was perfect.
ChICKEN SHAWARMA
• 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
For the marinade:
• 10 cloves garlic, minced (I used jarred for this, that's a lot of garlic to hammer)
• 2 lemons, juiced
• ½ cup olive oil
• 2 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp black pepper
For the sauce:
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed (WHAM BAM BAM)
• 1-2 tbs tahini
• 1 cup cool water
• ½ cup lemon juice
• Salt, to taste
To make the marinade, whisk the garlic, lemon juice, and oil together in a large sealable bowl. Add the curry powder, salt and pepper, and whisk to combine. Cut the chicken into small pieces or strips (I did mine just like fajita meat), and add the chicken in with the marinade. Toss to coat well, and seal it up to marinate overnight (8 hours) in the refrigerator.
To make the sauce, add garlic and tahini to a food processor, and pulse to combine. Add cold water a little at a time (1/4 cup at a time, up to 1 cup), until the sauce is thinned and frothy. Add lemon juice, and mix until creamy. Season with salt, to taste. You can add more tahini if you want it thicker, but it doesn’t have to be a thick sauce, and you won’t need lots of it. You only need enough to lightly toss the chicken in, like a vinaigrette-type salad dressing.
You can make this sauce ahead of time and refrigerate it alongside the chicken, but return it to room temperature (or warm it in the microwave? I didn't try that) before tossing with the finished chicken. You don't want your finished chicken to be cold on the outside.
When it’s time to cook the chicken, grill it on a grill (if you have one) or cook it in batches in a hot skillet (which is what I did - again, very much like I do fajitas). Cook each side until well browned and the center of each piece is cooked through. Toss the cooked chicken lightly in the sauce, and serve with warm pita bread and all the trimmings.
The original recipe I used (and I'm sorry, I don't remember the source for ANY of these recipes, they've been in my book for AGES) called for making like, five times the amount of sauce needed. I whittled it down some when I made it, but I still ended up with way, way too much sauce. I think the version I'm posting today will make the right amount, but I haven't tried these measurements yet. It's just my best guess. You might still have leftovers!
EDIT: also please note, this sauce could be entirely optional. Shayne was kind of freaked out that there was a sauce, since the chicken shawarma in restaurants doesn't seem to have it. Or theirs is different. I'm not sure which. Either way, I think he would have been pleased if I'd left it off. So whatever, YMMV.
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OKAY.
I know, that's a WALL of recipes. It's a lot to absorb. It's a weekend project to make it all at once. But again - the FLAVORS are so amazing I could seriously write epic poetry to this food. They all belong together. Group hug forever.
Things you will want on hand for this meal (or parts of this meal, even if you just make the hummus you will still want this stuff with it): cucumber slices, tomato slices, lettuce or spinach leaves, any other fresh crunchy veggies you can think of, and plenty of pita bread. I have a recipe for homemade pita that I'll try soon. But not this trip.
In closing, here's a picture of the falafel in a pita, with hummus and tzatziki.
Alas, it perished about 3 seconds after this last known photo was taken.
Can you please stab me somewhere and infuse all of this into me?
ReplyDeletei really, really hope scientists are working on developing that technology.
ReplyDelete