Who has the secret to tahini sauce?

Tonight, thanks largely to canarygirl's inspiration, I decided to try my hand at chicken shawarma. It's funny that I have not experimented too much with Lebanese cuisine, because it is very similar to Greek. And, where I am from originally (Dearborn, MI not Greece, hah) has the second largest population of Lebanese folks outside of the Middle East, so I grew up eating tons of tasty, authentic Middle Eastern foods. I guess I was partly intimidated to try making it for that reason.

So, tonight I made chicken shawarma, Jerusalem salad, and some rice pilaf with toasted almonds. I think the shawarma turned out GREAT but I wasn't terribly thrilled with my tahini sauce for the pita/salad. This is the second time I have tried making tahini and it was just kind of "eh" both times. The funny thing is the only ingredients are tahini, garlic, lemon juice and water. But I just couldn't get the taste I wanted. Oh well. If anyone has a foolproof recipe, please send it my way! I actually added a tablespoon of yogurt at the end, which helped and made it a little creamier, but it was still a little too tahini-y for my tastes.

Sorry about the lack of measurements in this recipe. I tend to be really bad abour measuring marinades. This marinade was enough for about 1 lb. of chicken.

Chicken shawarma

1/3 cup plain yogurt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 lemon, juiced
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
a pinch or cinnamon, or a stick
1 bay leaf
allspice (I only had whole allspice and used about 8, but a good pinch would work if you have ground)
small pinch of ground cloves (optional)
pinch of sumac
salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients together and pour mixture into ziplock bag with chicken pieces. Use whatever  type of meat you want.  I used some thighs that I skinned, since that is what I had on hand. Marinate for several hours or overnight. Note: when I do marinades with acids for long periods of time, I don't add the acid immediately. So, for this, I didn't add the lemon juice until about 30 minutes before I was going to cook the chicken.

Then, cook it how you like. I tend to prefer grilling or broiling (which is what I did) but you could bake it or cut it into pieces and pan fry or saute..whatever you prefer.

Pilaf with toasted almonds
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup finally diced onions
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup rice
1/4 cup vermicelli or spaghetti broken into pieces
2 cups chicken broth (or however much liquid  your brand of rice calls for)
1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds [toast in a dry skillet over medium heat or in a 375* oven for 5-10 minutes]
ground cinnamon (optional)

Heat saucepan and add butter and oil, until combined. Add onion and cook until tender. Add garlic and cook an additional 30 seconds before adding rice and vermicelli. Toast until spaghetti turns a golden brown color.

Add chicken broth. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce to a simmer and cook unti done. Stir in toasted almonds. Sprinkle with cinnamon, if desired.

As far as the Jerusalem salad is concerned (this is just diced tomatoes and cucumbers mixed with tahini sauce and topped with parsley) my tahini sauce was something like...
2 tablespoons tahini
Juice of one lemon
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon yogurt
water
Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

Mix all ingredients but water and oil. Add water slowly to desired consistency. Drizzle in EVOO.

Like I said, it was OK, not great. But maybe someone will experiment with it and give me the winning tahini recipe. :)

Unfortunately, my camera batteries died just as I was trying to take a picture of the whole meal together :( So, here are some bits and pieces of the process/parts of the meal.

On Friday, we had goat cheese-sundried tomato-spinach paninis on ciabatta bread. I used herbed goat cheese and drizzled  it all with a little baslamic vinegar before grilling on the press. We had it with a spinach and mixed green salad (topped with shaved romano). I am starting to run out of meatless ideas for Lenten Fridays. This was SO good though. Really, how bad can goat cheese + warm crusty bread be?

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