Cat's Culinary Creations: Chicken Shawarma, Ottoman Empire origins?

This middle eastern street food is cooked on a revolving spit. It is basically a vertical
rotisserie.

You can buy one from about $250.00 on up. Up being restaurant grade that is upwards of $2000+.

So grilling is much easier and requires no special equipment except a grill pan for the stove top. Or on the barbecue (gas or charcoal).

There are seemingly millions of recipes for shawarma. Beef, lamb, turkey or chicken are the usual suspects. The spice mix varies from recipe to recipe to recipe. Even within the same protein the variations seem endless. Although, perhaps the difference is more cultural than just variety.

More than one internet source states that shawarma originated from the Ottoman Empire in the 18th or 19th century. The Ottoman empire lasted from the late 13^th century through the early 20^th century (1299-1922). In Arabic, shawarma means turning. The Greek gyro is related as well as tacos al pastor.

I read the Washington Post most days. They have a great food section. I came across the headline: Take a tour of Middle Eastern cooking with 9 recipes, including shawarma, flatbreads and tahdig

Of course, I clicked through and perused the recipes. The first on the list was chicken shawarma. The headline of this article: Israeli-style chicken shawarma is surprisingly accessible to make at home (A chicken shawarma recipe that makes Israeli-style cooking surprisingly easy - The Washington Post). The Israeli part caught my attention. The recipe is adapted from the book Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen.

I read through the recipe and then compared it to a recipe I have already saved for grilled chicken shawarma (Grilled Chicken Shawarma - Rose Water & Orange Blossoms (maureenabood.com). The author of this site is Lebanese American and the spice list is somewhat different. It includes sumac, allspice and mint plus the usual suspects. I have made it a few times and it’s delicious.

The Post recipe spices include the usual, the different spices being cardamom, paprika, oregano, cinnamon, cloves and ginger. Also, it lists Amba for serving. What the heck is that? More investigation, down the worm hole I go. Amba is a mango pickle condiment. Story has it that Iraqi-Jews introduced the condiment to Israel in the 1950s-1960s. It was adopted by Iraqi-Jews in Bombay I assume while living there. And on to Israel as the Iraqi-Jews moved there. An urban legend from the murky depths of Wikipedia.

Most recipes are saucy. I found a pickle for green mango spears (https://www.cardamomandtea.com/blog/amba) The author is of Assyrian decent and is not Jewish, so I assume the pickle is not traditional in Israel.

It sounded intriguing. Also, it called for yellow curry powder with an accompanying recipe (Yellow Curry Powder Recipe — Cardamom and Tea).

I have no idea how authentic any of this is. I would like to go to Israel and try the street food out for myself. I have a couple of friends who go there (or went there before the pandemic) often and I am sure could point out the errors of these dishes. But they are very nice people and would be nice in the critique.

So, I marinated the chicken and made the yellow curry.