$116 vs $16 Shawarma: Pro Chef & Home Cook Swap Ingredients

For each one of my laffas,

let's see, who's laughing now.

What that a dad joke?

What's wrong with me?

[playful music]

Hi, I'm Ayesha, a professional chef, and in this box

are the ingredients to make a $116 shawarma.

Hi, I'm Julie, I'm a home chef

and these are my $16 shawarma ingredients.

[playful music]

Okay.

Ooh.

Welcome to my kitchen.

I was planning on making lamb shawarma

with laffa, white sauce and Xu.

I had a leg of lamb for Julie

that was gonna debone and truss.

I love leg of lamb.

Which I was going to spice with shawarma spices.

I've got ground turmeric.

Ooh, Jamaican girl's friend, ginger.

Smoke hot paprika, cinnamon powder,

ground cumin, onions, chicken stock.

Fresh mint, a pomegranate, flat parsley.

I was gonna make my own laffa,

which is like a Middle Eastern flatbread.

All purpose flour.

Baking powder, oh gosh, I'm gonna be baking.

Sugar, milk, active dry yeast.

This does not bode well for Julie.

And a zhoug, which is like a spicy cilantro sauce

made with chilis...

Serrano chili.

[Ayesha] Olive oil.

Extra-virgin of course.

And a touch of cardamom.

The white sauce is a yogurt based sauce that has mayonnaise.

I'm familiar.

[Ayesha] And creme fraiche in it.

We're getting fancy.

It has an array of spices.

Garlic powder, cayenne pepper,

gonna be spicy.

Cherry vinegar.

Also using garlic and lemon.

It was going to be really delicious.

A lot of ingredients.

Let's see what's inside of the box.

I was just gonna bake a basic,

I got home late chicken shawarma.

We have chicken thighs, shawarma spice mix.

I have yogurt, a lemon, garlic.

I have tahini, a cucumber, a red onion, my favorite.

And we have whole wheat pita.

Easy peasy.

If I had to guess,

I would think that these ingredients costs $24.

$16, I guess I was a little off.

I'm gonna say maybe 50 bucks.

Does that include the airfare to get all of these spices?

That's a lot of money for a shawarma.

Unfortunately I don't have those ingredients,

but let me see what I can do with these.

Apparently what I'm making is roasted lamb shawarma,

okay, I know what that is.

With white sauce, open to interpretation.

Zhoug, zhoug?

And homemade laffa.

I'm assuming laffa is pita bread.

I'm not a baker guys.

And I thought I was gonna have a recipe.

I just have a punch of ingredients,

what am I gonna do?

Rose! Julie,

Oh my gosh, it's so nice to meet you.

I'm freaking out Rose and I need your help.

You are gonna get this.

Can you tell me what the heck is zhoug?

Zhoug, zhoug is a beautifully, colorful accompaniment.

It's cilantro, it's a garnish

but it's also a big flavor punch for your shawarma.

Okay Rose, now here comes my real issue.

I don't bake and yeast freaks me out.

Don't let it freak you out.

It's a very forgiving recipe.

Treat the yeast very gently at first,

you're gonna warm it in a little bit of milk,

which is a nice rich medium for growing yeast.

Don't go over about 110 degrees.

Now with the lamb, I'm gonna preheat the oven

kind of high...

425 even 450 if you want.

You're gonna do with the spice rub,

so I think you're gonna take some olive oil

and some onion and garlic and wiz it around

in a food processor and then add a ton of spice in.

And then you're going to smear it,

rub it on both sides of the lamb.

I love it, that speaks my language,

I like to use my hands.

Yes.

I feel really good about the lamb part,

I think I'll knock that out of the park.

I feel okay now that I know what zhoug is.

The only thing I'm being honest about, the laffa,

but you know what, I trust you.

You got it.

I believe you when you say it's easy

and I'm gonna try and knock it out the park for you.

Bye Rose.

So we're gonna start to prep the chicken for our shawarma.

So now that our chicken has been patted dry,

I'm gonna place it directly into our mixing bowl.

And the first thing we're gonna do is slice up some onion.

I have four onions right now.

I'm going to slice three of them,

'cause I'm gonna take these sliced onions

and lay my meat on top of them.

All of that flavor and the marinade

is gonna seep down into the onions

and the onions are gonna get caramelized

and they're gonna be so yummy.

So for this recipe we are gonna be using

some of the shawarma spice and of course salt

and some fresh ground pepper.

Now we're going to make a marinade.

Because we're gonna blend this,

we're gonna roughly chop the onion,

it doesn't have to be pretty.

Just drop that in your blender.

Then we're gonna use five cloves of garlic,

'cause I like garlic and garlic and lamb.

Ginger root, toss that in there, this smells really good.

And then we're going to put three tablespoons of olive oil.

So let's blend this up. [blender running]

That's looking emulsified.

This becomes the base for our marinade.

Oh, tastes really good through my nostrils.

So when I think about shawarma,

there's one ingredient that really comes to mind for me,

and it's turmeric.

It gives it such a beautiful earthy flavor

and gives it that gorgeous golden color.

We're gonna add a little bit of olive oil.

I'm gonna add a little bit of this turmeric in right here.

I love turmeric, but boy does this stuff stain.

Smoked Spanish paprika, Ceylon cinnamon powder

or true cinnamon.

And we are not going to do the cinnamon challenge today.

And the last thing I'm going to add is cumin powder.

I love lemon.

And in shawarma, lemon will brighten up

those flavors of the spices.

And I like to just zest the lemon only until you kind of see

the lighter ends of the lemon show.

We're gonna squeeze in some lemon juice right now.

Gonna put the juice in like this.

This is old school the way mom used to do it

before all of these new fangled gadgets.

You gotta put a little bit of black pepper

because it's the law.

There is nothing that can continue

without a little bit of salt.

And I'm going to now mix all of this together.

It's a very paste like consistency.

I'm just gonna pick off some cilantro

and a little bit of parsley.

What I'd like to do when I'm chopping herbs

is roll them into a bowl

and then use my knife in a sewing fashion

and just thinly slice.

They're gonna go into the shawarma and marinate,

but also when they're cooking when slice thin,

they won't burn in the oven.

For now, we are gonna put this savory mixture on our lamb.

I think that the technical term

for what I'm doing is slathering.

I may be a novice, but flavors help you look like a pro.

At this point, you can use tangs the spoon,

but I don't think I can help myself,

I'm gonna dig in with my hands

and really mix the shawarma and marinate this chicken.

My next step is to truss this meat up.

All right Julie, with the lamb,

the word truss is just a fancy word for tie.

What you really wanna do is make sure that the lamb

is tied evenly so it cooks evenly.

So roll it up, put a piece of the twine in the middle

and then work your way on either side

to get three or four more pieces of twine.

What I like to do is make kind of a little slip knot,

and then I use that slip nut to hold it tightly together.

What I'm doing is kind of making like a little parcel.

So if I had it my way,

I would marinate this for at least 24 hours.

But since we have a lot of spices in here

with the lemon and the parsley,

I think 20 minutes or a half an hour will do.

Okay, we're gonna put this in the refrigerator

for two to three hours to marinate.

This is gonna take a little bit longer

than the recipe I had planned.

I'll let this marinate, wrap it in plastic wrap,

and then we'll get it popped in the oven.

It's been two and a half hours.

So now we're gonna get ready to put it in the oven.

And that's where we're gonna use

those three onions that we sliced up.

Then remember that chicken stock,

just pour it over the onion

to give it a nice relaxing bath.

Perch your meat ever so tenderly.

Put it up to 450 and we are going to pop it in the oven.

So when I opened the box

and so the red onion and cucumber,

I immediately thought about pickling them.

And when you pickle something,

how you cut it really affects the texture.

So I'm gonna cut the end off, so I have a nice flat surface.

So the reason why I'm cutting these cucumbers length wise,

is because every time I get a bite of the shawarma,

I want a pop up the pickle from the cucumber.

The fun part is over.

I am gonna now make a laffa, and I gotta be very precise.

So I put my little ball on top of my scale

and it says that it weighs 204 grams,

so I am going to add yeast until I get to 208.

208, no way.

I had put this milk in the microwave

for about 20, 25 seconds.

We're gonna sprinkle that in.

And then I'm gonna put the sugar

in with the yeast and the milk.

I'm not really sure what this is supposed to look like.

I don't think it's supposed to be lumpy, but it kinda is.

Wow, I think something's happening here.

When you think about pickling red onion,

traditionally, you think about slicing them in rings.

I'm gonna show you onion petals.

I wanna take a little bit off the bottom,

I'm gonna take out the core,

and then I'm gonna slice the onion into three pieces.

This is what onion pedals look like.

So this wasn't in the box

and I like things a little bit spicy.

I'm gonna take this serrano chili and just cut it in half.

I'm gonna take a few peeled garlic cloves

and just smash them.

So we're gonna take some of these ingredients,

get to the stove, show you the pickling liquid

and get our cucumber and onion petals

ready to go for our shawarma sandwich.

I've gotta turn down the oven on our lamb.

This heat is going down to 350.

And we're just gonna let that lamb slow cook for a while.

Okay, now that we have our onions and cucumbers cut,

we're gonna layer them in a mason jar.

There's no rhyme or reason how this needs to be done.

So you can just drop a few cucumbers in there,

followed by a few onions and continue up

until you have all of the vegetables inside the jar.

After this, let's get ready

to get the pickling liquid going.

So now we need yogurt and I need 55 grams.

Whoop, that's too much, so I'm gonna pour some out.

Ain't it fun to cook flying blind,

when you have no idea what you're doing?

504, this is why I hate baking.

All right, we're at 503.

Okay, so let's talk pickling liquid.

I use the same amounts of water and vinegar

and the same amount of sugar and salt.

And I add the water here.

A key ingredient and pickling is vinegar.

So I have some red wine vinegar in the pantry

and I'm gonna add it into the pickling liquid.

I have the garlic that I smashed before with that chili,

that's gonna spice this up.

And I had some black peppercorns in the pantry as well

that I'm going to add to this.

I love the flavor of pepper inside a pickle.

The other thing that I think is always good,

is when you buy herbs, people often throw out the stem.

Why do that?

The stem has so much flavor.

So I'm gonna add some of the cilantro and parsley stem I had

from when we marinated the chicken.

I'm gonna add the salt and sugar, bring this to a boil

and then we're gonna pour it right over our pickles.

It's time to put all of this stuff together

and see what comes out.

I'm gonna dump my flour in here.

We've got the baking powder and the salt,

my new friend, the yeast, the olive oil,

and last but not least the yogurt.

Ready to rock?

[blender running] I think I'm making dough.

Okay, our pickling liquid came to a boil

and then I simmered it for about five minutes.

We're gonna pour the hot liquid

right over the onions and cucumbers.

So I'm gonna use these shortly,

I'm gonna leave them on the counter top.

But if you wanted to make these

and store them up to a month,

just put a lid on them, wait until they cool down

and put them in the refrigerator.

I'm gonna clean up now

and get ready to make the white sauce.

I kind of think this has done.

And this is pretty smooth.

I'm gonna put a little bit of cling wrap over my bowl.

It has to sit for about 30 minutes.

So while that happens, we'll work on our sauces.

Okay, so onto the yogurt sauce.

I have some creme fraiche,

which has some beautiful French style cultured cream.

We need 3/4 of a cup.

3/4 of a cup of mayonnaise.

My last ingredient is the yogurt,

which will bring us to two cups.

Plain yogurt is the best for this recipe,

because you wanna be in control

of the flavors that you put in.

The next ingredients is tahini.

Tahini is a sesame paste.

And lastly, some garlic.

And the easiest way to incorporate garlic into sauces,

is to use a microplane.

The microplane will ensure that you don't get large pieces.

Make it as mall as you possibly can.

Add your garlic.

We're gonna add some garlic powder

which will give us some real punch.

Cayenne pepper.

I'm not gonna measure the black pepper,

I am just gonna do a nice grinding.

A little lemon juice for acidity.

♪ This is how we do it. ♪

I'm gonna add a little salt because every chef loves salt.

We don't need a lot of salt, just a little.

What is Julie missing but some beautiful cherry vinegar?

I'm just gonna whisk it all together.

The most important thing right now is to taste it.

There are no rules with this.

If you like your sauce a little more acidic,

then add more yogurt, but I love the flavor of tahini,

so I really want that to be present.

So I wanna taste this, that's good to go.

This is my white sauce.

We're gonna let the flavors meld together,

while I prepare the zhoug.

We're gonna make some zhoug.

First thing we wanna do is smash our garlic,

dump that in the blender.

I've got half a bunch of cilantro.

For the faint of heart, I will only use

one 1/4 of this serrano chili.

I'm gonna put a 1/4 of a teaspoon of the ground cardamom

and of course, salt to taste.

And then I'm gonna drizzle the olive oil in.

Shawarma time.

So the chicken has been marinated now for about 40 minutes

and I'm gonna take my tangs and just make sure

that I get every good bitterness

of this marinade out of the bowl.

So what you want to do is make sure that you don't

overcrowd the pan once you put these in the oven.

I'm gonna pop this chicken into the oven at 425 degrees

for about 10 to 15 minutes.

[blender running]

Smells really good.

Can you believe it, I just made zhoug.

Okay Julie, so I've heard that you're not a big baker,

but don't worry, because the laffa recipe is super simple.

I need four ounces of dough for each one of my laffas.

So after you apportion it out,

feel free to roll it with your rolling pin.

It can be oval, it can be round,

it could look like a football, it doesn't matter.

All that matters is that it tastes good.

For all the steps that went into this,

it better be a hundred and some odd dollar shawarma,

my goodness.

But I'm gonna tell you this,

I don't think I'm afraid of flour and yeast anymore.

I may have conquered a fear today guys.

So Julie's at her house making the fresh laffa bread,

and I got store-bought pita in my box.

I'm gonna have to doctor this up.

What I'm thinking is that we can make a sumac butter

to layer in between the pita

to give it a really great flavor.

I'm gonna take some unsalted butter, and why unsalted,

because you wanna be able to control

the salt content and flavor.

Again, using the technique of the microplane,

grate some garlic in there because,

what's the recipe without garlic.

So in order to doctor up this pita,

I'm gonna bring out one of my pantry's secret ingredients.

Sumac is the berry from the sumac plant,

which is dried and then pulverized.

I love its flavor because it brings

a nice citrus punch to things.

I'm gonna put this butter on the stove,

get it melted and get ready to start layering

this flavors in between the pita.

We've rolled them out,

now we're gonna put them on the griddle and cook them up.

You know how you know it's working?

Look, there's bubbles.

Woo hoo hoo, check it out.

So I have some whole wheat pita here, smells delicious.

I'm gonna take the sumac butter

and literally paint it directly on the pita.

So the addition of the sumac butter

onto the store-bought pita,

will not only enhance the flavor,

but once we put it into the aluminum pouch

and stick it in the oven,

we're really hoping to replicate fresh baked pita.

[playful music]

It's dark, I've been making lamb shawarma all day.

I'm not mad at myself, I think this looks pretty good.

So now I guess I have to add some nice color to this,

do we have a pomegranate.

We are gonna take a wooden spoon

and we're gonna hit on our pomegranate

until our seeds release.

Now we've got some cilantro that we have leftover,

we have fresh mint and some flat leaf parsley.

Like about six leaves of each type of herb

and then half a lemon.

So this is like a nice little accompaniment.

So guys, it's the main event,

the chicken's out and it's rested.

I'm gonna take the chicken and I'm gonna slice it

into fairly thin pieces, about a quarter of an inch.

Because when you have your shawarma,

you want everything to be able to be bite-sized

Slice this lamb.

Wow, look at that.

Come on, this is some nice looking lamb.

And we are going to plate this.

So I'm gonna take a little bit of our yogurt sauce

and drizzle that on the pita.

I don't like to spread it on,

'cause I like those surprise pockets

of yogurt once you get to taste.

I'm gonna add some of our chicken

and I'm gonna plate the chicken in the middle on one,

and all around the perimeter on the other.

This is a wonderful recipe if you were entertaining.

You could have people make their own,

and you could plate to elegantly or as a sandwich.

So the first thing we're gonna do

is put our layers of lamb.

Then remember, we cooked this lamb

on this fabulous bed of onions.

So we're gonna put these onions on.

So I'm just gonna do some little curls of the pickle.

We're gonna finish it with some nice leaves of parsley,

and a nice little squeeze of lemon juice.

The next thing we're going to do

is drizzle our white sauce.

When you do eat this, eat this with someone you care about,

because you are gonna have garlic breath,

oh, I can smell it already.

And then we finish off with this lovely cornucopia

of fresh herbs, lemon juice, some pomegranate seeds.

Did I do this?

I think so.

I don't know about you,

but I love food that you could eat with your hands.

So I'm gonna take my shawarma

and kind of pinch the bottom of it.

And then I happen to have a little baggy here

but you can use foil.

I'm gonna put my shawarma in the bottom of the bag

and just twist, so that I can enjoy the shawarma on the go.

So here's the shawarma, you could have it family style

for an elegant dinner at home or in a sandwich on the go.

It took me long enough, but here is my lamb shawarma.

And as they say in France, voila!

I think this shawarma deserves a little selfie time.

Whoa, that looks good.

So it's the moment of truth, we have to taste this.

So good.

The spices of the shawarma are perfect.

The pickle has this crunchy acidity

which really makes the dish pop.

This shawarma came out sensational.

I have to head to Shuka to open up for service.

I'll be checking in later with Julie

to see how her shawarma turned out.

Hi, Julie, I'm gonna take this mask off.

I am at the restaurant, but I'm in a secure room

with no customers.

So I have the whole space to myself right now.

How are you?

I'm good, although I will also tell you,

I've been cooking since 8 o'clock this morning.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

But let me see your masterpiece.

Okay, all right, be honest, be tough.

Oh my goodness, I would love to say

that the dish is almost as beautiful as you are.

Oh, come on.

It is gorgeous.

Listen, you have to come here,

we could run that as a special at Shuka at night.

I'm gonna try what I know is fabulous when you make it.

Should I use a knife and fork or should I be a savage?

Savage is the only way to go Chef Julie.

All right, let me taste this.

Those grill marks a perfect.

Oh, the cilantro, the pomegranate seeds are perfect.

The white sauce makes me feel like a superstar.

As you are.

You conquered a chef's recipe and made it your own.

I can't believe it.

Julie, you're making me so jealous.

I had to eat my shawarma on the run

'cause I had to get to work and open Shuka.

I wish I was there to share with you.

I love your combination of the tahini and yogurt together.

That's not something that I ever do.

So we might have to adapt that

to the restaurant as a recipe.

Well, I made it easy for you

because it was cheap and easy.

It was so much fun and I hope to see you soon.

Ayesha, thank you so much and I will see you at Shuka.

You better.

Bye.

Bye.