Hey guys welcome back to Dede’s Mediterranean kitchen. Today, I’m going to be making one of the most famous dishes in the Middle East. It’s the best sandwich you’ll ever have, I love it. It’s called Shawarma. I’m making the beef Shawarma, which is tender and juicy and oh so good. For this recipe or my any of my other recipes go to www.dedemed.com you could also go to my store and buy some of those spices over there, if you can’t buy them in your local grocery store.

Now, what were going to start off with is the beef. You’re going to want fillet, fillet is the most tender meat or beef that’s out there. It’s really juicy. It doesn’t have a lot of fat in it. If you can’t find fillet you can use strips of carnasatamy that’s pounded and tenderized and then cut into fine strips.

Now, the way that we’re making this shawarma is not on the stand-up roaster that you see at the restaurants, this is the way you make it at home. If you have a roaster then someday I’ll show you how to make the recipe for the stand-up roaster. But this is how you make it at home. It’s easy. It’s not that complicated you just mix everything together.

Now, you want to ask your butcher if you don’t like playing with the beef and you’re like cutting it out. You might want to ask your butcher to cut it into fine strips, just like that. You want them about a half inch wide and maybe an eighth of an inch or bit a quarter inch thick. The fillet, very tender, you are going to want to marinate the meat after you add all the spices and seasonings. You might want to marinate it for about four hours before you cook it. In that way all of the flavors develop.

Now, I have about two pounds of the finely-sliced fillet. Make sure the butcher cleans it from all the tendons and any other tough tissue that’s on there. What you’re going to want to add is one cup of finely-sliced onions and then a half cup of finely-sliced green pepper.

Now, I know you are thinking “Oh my God, that is not on the Shawarma that I eat”. This is all going to pretty much disintegrate in the oven while it’s cooking. Also when you marinate it the vegetable kind of becomes very limp and when you cook it, it kinds of disappears. If you don’t want the green pepper, you don’t have to add it just add the onions. Some people also like to add jalapeno. I’m going to keep it cool. I know jalapeno.

Now, the spices and seasonings that you are going to need are one tablespoon of salt, two cloves of finely minced garlic, one teaspoon or one and a half teaspoon of seven spices, I like to add a little kick so I’m going to add quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper. You want two to three bay leaves and one to two cinnamon sticks broken in half, and three to four cardamom seeds. If you can’t find the cardamom seeds, its ok to use the about half teaspoon of the cardamom instead.

Now, you want to add all of these to your meat mixture, make sure you get it all in there. If you can’t find any of these spices, of course you know you can buy them from my website. Start to mix it in, just a little bit. Then we’re going to add our liquids. You want about a third of a cup of lemon juice, you want about a third of a cup of good olive oil. And you want to add some freshly ground black pepper.

Now, after we left his marinate for about four hours, we’re going to place it in the oven and I’m going to show you also on how to make it into a sandwich.

So mix it up really well. Be careful after you cook it make sure not to add the cardamom seeds – some people do like to eat them, I personally do not like to eat them. You want to remove the bay leaves and you want to remove the cardamom seeds after you cook it so that it doesn’t end up in somebody’s sandwich. So mix it up really well. If you don’t like to use your hands you don’t have to but it’s not that bad you just wash your hands afterwards.

Cover it with some turan wrap and let it marinate in the refrigerator for about four hours. After you let it marinate, you’ll want to cover it with some aluminum foil and put in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes, covered. After it cooks for about 40 minutes, you want to take off the aluminum, remove the aluminum. If you see that there’s a lot of juice in the Shawarma, you want to pour off some of those juices, you can pour them off in the sink or you can just remove them with a spoon and you want to turn over the Shawarma a little bit after the 40 minutes. Leave it uncovered in the oven uncovered for another 20 minutes and then take it out of the oven.