Last night I knew chicken was on the menu. I just had to figure out what to do with it. So I googled some chicken recipes for Whole30. I am on my first round and on day 25 of whole30. In case you don’t know what that is, it basically forbids sugar, dairy, grains, and alcohol. Encourages whole, natural foods.
Probably the fourth recipe I saw was chicken shawarma. Once I had that idea in my head I was pretty excited.
What I like to do with recipes (especially popular or traditional recipes) that have many different takes and variations is to look up 3-5 recipes and get the gist of the dish, and then make up my own variation. Then I remember how to make the dish better too. This really only works with more simple recipes though since complex recipes require more focus and attention to detail.
I looked up three or four Shawarma recipes and ALL of them asked that I marinate the chicken for at least a few hours in the spices but… I didn’t have time for that.
So this is my recipe of chicken shawarma without marinating… it was seriously so delicious!! Next time I might marinate it and see how it turns out.
This was before it went into the oven.
It has potatoes, onion, and chicken.
Ingredients: (roughly)
2tbsp turmeric
2tbsp curry powder
2tbsp cumin
2tbsp garlic powder
2tbsp onion powder
2tbsp paprika
1tbsp cayenne
1tbsp ground cinnamon
1tbsp sea salt
1tbsp minced or crushed garlic
1tsp crushes cloves
1 large onion
1 Lemons juice and 4 tbsp olive oil
3 lbs Chicken and 3 lbs Potatoes
(Makes a large, family size portion. Half it if you are just feeding 1-3)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 F
In a large bowl, mix all the spices together except the lemon juice. Then add four tbsp of oil (or more) and mix into a paste that will look like tomato paste kinda
Filet and strip the chicken against the grain into strips and the potatoes into one inch cubes. Cut the onion into larger strips.
Toss the potatoes in the large bowl with the spices until they are lightly coated. There should be some left over spice paste after your potatoes are coated.
Put some oil down on a large baking pan. Throw those in the oven since they will take longer to cook than the chicken.
Then add the chicken and onion to the large bowl and coat it with the remainder of spices. I use a large spoon because turmeric stains your fingernails and makes them yellow.
Make sure the potatoes have been cooking like 15-20 mins and then spoon the chicken and onion right on top. Spread it out and then squeeze one lemons juice over your chicken, onions, and semi-baked potatoes. Bake for about 40 more minutes.
I had to separate and bake my potatoes longer at the end because I put the potatoes and chicken in together but here’s my after picture.
It was fire.
Gastationfoodie 