Lamb Shawarma With Garlic Sauce

During 2015 PA Bacon Fest, I found this amazing Egyptian eatry called Taza inside the Easton Market.  I tried their beef shawarma.  I was hooked!  The garlic!  the spices! It was delicious. You can also make this with chicken or lamb, which is what used. There are so many different variations of spice blends; Turkish  Arabic, Egyptian and Lebanese just to name a few. Some have cinnamon, some cardamom and some with allspice. They are all very good. I also used my Turkish Garlic I bought from the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival over the summer. It has a great flavor and is a bit spicy so I thought it would be perfect for this dish.  I would also suggest buying whole spices and grinding them yourself. It makes a difference in flavor. If you have a spice grinder or coffee grinder ( I have a separate one just for grinding my spices). Sometimes ground spices can sit on a store shelf  and lose their flavor.

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Lamb Shawarma

Serves 4-5
Ingredients

2 lbs of boneless lamb cut into 1inch chunks

Marinade Ingredients

6 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup of olive oil

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground caraway

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon

1/2 teaspoon of oregano

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (use less or omit if you do not like spice)

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

 

For the Marinade

In a mini food processor or blender,  add all of the spices along with the lemon juice and apple cider vinegar except for the olive oil and mix for a couple of minutes.

Cut the lamb into 1 inch chunks

In a glass bowl, rub the meat with the spice mixture,  add the olive oil then rub again, cover and let marinate overnight in the fridge.

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Preheat oven 300 degrees

In a large dutch oven (with a lid) spread out lamb chunks and add a bit of marinade, cover with lid. then bake at  for 2 hours.

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Once meat cooked, in the pot, take two forks and shred the meat and serve on or along side warm pita with shredded lettuce and tomatos and. a drizzle of garlic sauce

Garlic Sauce Ingredients

This is the best recipe I found and use for many different things like dips or sandwich spreads.

1 1/2 heads of garlic

2  cups grape seed oil or vegetable oil

juice of half a lemon

salt to taste

Add garlic and salt in the food processor and run for 10-20 seconds.
Stop processor, scrap garlic down the sides, then run processor again for another 10-20 seconds. Repeat process 3-4 times until garlic starts to turn pasty and looks crushed. This is very important to reach before proceeding.
At this point, turn the processor back on and keep it on until the end.
Start adding the oil to the processor at a very slow rate, in a very thin stream, each ½ cup at a time. After adding the first half cup you will start seeing the garlic emulsify and turn into a paste already.
Add ½ teaspoon of lemon juice very slowly, in a thin stream.
Wait on it a few seconds until the lemon juice is well absorbed.
Then go back to repeating the same process of adding slowly ½ cup of oil, waiting a few seconds, then adding ½ teaspoon of lemon juice until you’ve used all ingredients. This process should take 8-10 minutes.
If at any point you see that the paste is turning liquid, it may be an indication that you’ve added either too much lemon juice, or oil, or you may have added them at a fast rate. In this case your options may be limited especially if the paste completely breaks. Sometimes adding a cube of ice may help.

 

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