Chicken Shawarma Feast
This recipe was kindly created for us using our oil by Tim from stockandbothered.com
Tim is a busy father of two from Whitley Bay. His recipes come from a love of cooking and a need to fit it around pick ups, drop offs, work, family adventures, running, riding etc..
After years of procrastination he created stockandbothered.com in 2019 to share his recipes and ideas. You can also find food inspiration on his Instagram page, @stockandbothered.
Tim says, “This is a proper feast, you’ll end up with about eight bowls of food on the table, however apart from marinating the chicken everything else can be prepped and cooked in the last hour or earlier in the day. The hard bit is remembering to marinade the chicken. Ideally it needs 24 hours, but a couple of hours will do at a pinch. One of the best ways is to freeze it in the marinade, then it is ready to cook when you need it.”
Serves 4
Ingredients
Chicken
The best cut of chicken is the leg meat, as chicken breast will just dry out. I’ve used both drumsticks and thighs, but I’ve found thighs work the best. Either buy them deboned or do it yourself.
6-8 chicken thighs (skin and bones removed), the more the merrier.
4 wooden skewers
littleseed Marinade
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp chipotle chilli flakes, or you could use normal
2 bay leaves
1/2 a nutmeg grated
4 crushed garlic cloves
1/2 cup orange juice
1 lime
2 tbsp littleseed extra virgin British rapeseed oil
Pittas
6 pittas
Salads
1 gem lettuce
1 pepper
1/2 cucumber
6 radishes
Yogurts
100ml Greek yogurt
1 tsp smoked paprika
6 mint leaves
1 lime
2 ramekins or small glasses
Garlic Fries
4 potatoes (you need about 750g or as many as will fit on the tray)
2 tbsp littleseed Garlic & Herb oil
1 tsp sea salt
Roasting tray
Parchment
Halloumi Fries
A block of halloumi
1 tsp smoked paprika
2 tbsp plain flour
littleseed extra virgin British rapeseed oil, enough to create a 1cm layer
Medium or wide frying pan
Method & Prep
Either the night before or before you freeze it add all marinade ingredients to a large container with a lid and mix together. Then add the chicken and coat in the marinade. Pop the lid on and put in the fridge or freezer.
Though the chicken needs 10 minutes cooking time, but you need to start cooking an hour before you plan to eat. The beauty is that the salads and sides can be made early on and can be ready to hit the table.
You could even prep the chicken kebabs, yogurts and halloumi early in the afternoon, cover and put in the fridge. The list below is in cooking order so all the food is ready at the same time.
Garlic Fries
Preheat the oven at 220C.
Put the parchment on the tray (this helps them stay crispy).
Then cut the potatoes, skin on, into the thinnest chips possible the simplest way is, using your largest knife, slice the bottom off, then slice thinly. Then holding the slices together cut into chips.
Once each potato is cut up add to the tray until you have a single layer of potatoes, you don’t want any double layering or they’ll be soggy.
Then drizzle with oil and toss the chips in the oil by hand.
Put the chips in the oven.
Halloumi Fries
Cut the halloumi into sticks.
Mix the flour and spices.
Add the halloumi and coat in flour.
Put in the fridge.
Yogurts
Split the yogurt between the ramekins.
Add the paprika and squeeze 1/2 a lime to one and stir.
Chop up the mint leaves and add to the other and squeeze the other 1/2 lime and stir.
Put in the fridge.
Chicken
Soak skewers in cold water for 5 minutes.
Take out the grill pan and switch on the grill at full heat.
Get the chicken out the fridge.
Thread the chicken onto the skewer, the best way is to fold it onto the skewer. You should be able to stack about 3 thighs on each skewer.
Place skewers on grill pan.
Salads
Clean and finely slice the lettuce.
Deseed the peppers and finely slice. The best way is take the pepper and cut the outer flesh off, leaving the root, seeds and inner flesh.
Top and tail the radishes, then finely slice.
Slice the cucumber lengthways, first cutting down the sides of the seeds to remove them. Then finely slice into sticks.
20 Minutes Before Eating
Switch the grill on high to warm up.
Set the table (or get a hungry helper to do it!). You’ll need plenty of plates, spoons and teaspoons for serving and filling.
The put the chicken in, as close to the grill as possible.
After 5 minutes it should be nice and charred. Take out the grill and turn. At this point pop the pitta in the grill too for a minute on each side.
Put the chicken back in, one rung down if possible, and grill for a further 5 minutes.
