00:01Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Pulled Chicken Shawarma Sandwich.
00:08That's right, if you know what you're doing, and by the end of this video you will,
00:13you can make a pulled chicken that's every bit as succulent and satisfying as pulled pork.
00:18And when you factor in the always irresistible shawarma spice, this, my friends, is a sandwich you're not going to want to miss.
00:25And to get started in a small bowl, we'll mix together some salt, some cumin, some sumac, some smoked paprika,
00:33some chili powder, some freshly ground black pepper, some garlic powder, some turmeric, some ground cloves, some cayenne pepper,
00:43and then last but not least some ground cinnamon.
00:46And then we'll go ahead and mix that up with a freakishly small wooden spoon.
00:50And our shawarma spice blend is done.
00:53And once that's set, we'll take a big old chicken and transfer it into a big old pot.
00:58And I think the bigger the better, and this one was almost five pounds.
01:02And then to that we will add some sliced garlic and onion, followed by about half of our shawarma spice mix.
01:08Okay, we're actually going to use that three times.
01:11Alright, once to cook the chicken, once to season the chicken.
01:15And then we'll also sprinkle a little bit over our finished sandwich.
01:18But anyway, once about half's been transferred in, we'll top that with a quart of cold fresh water,
01:23which is only going to come up the chicken about halfway, which might not seem like enough, but trust me, it's going to be fine.
01:30And what we'll do is place this over high heat, and we will wait for it to come to a boil,
01:35at which point we'll back our heat down to low, or somewhere between low and medium low.
01:40And we will cover this.
01:42And we will let it simmer gently for 20 minutes.
01:45And once our timer rings, we will uncover this.
01:48And we will very carefully, and very deliberately, and pretty slowly turn it over,
01:53so the breast side is down.
01:55And then we'll go ahead and cover this back up.
01:58And we'll continue to let it simmer for another 20 minutes,
02:01before we repeat the exact same thing.
02:04Okay, we'll uncover it, and very carefully flip it back over.
02:08And we will cover it up and give it another 20 minutes,
02:11for a grand total of one hour,
02:13at which point our chicken should be cooked through.
02:16And at this point, we're going to very carefully transfer it into a nice big bowl.
02:21And by the way, as long as this cooks for an hour,
02:23you can just flip it once if you want.
02:25All right, as you know, I'm paid by the step, so I go for the extra flip.
02:29And what we'll do is turn off the heat under our pot.
02:32And we will let our chicken cool on the counter for about 20 to 30 minutes,
02:36or until it's cool enough to handle.
02:38And once it is, we will handle it.
02:41And by handle, I mean pull off all the big chunks of meat,
02:44and transfer those into a bowl.
02:46And as you've probably heard me say before,
02:48we can get 95% of the meat off a chicken in like 2 minutes.
02:52But to pick that last 5% off the bones,
02:55it's going to take you like 10 minutes.
02:57So I say we don't do it.
02:59And we just leave all those little scraps attached,
03:01since what we're going to do is transfer that back into our pot,
03:04and make a really, really rich broth,
03:07in which we're going to finish our pulled chicken.
03:10And after we transfer it in,
03:11I like to rinse out the bowl with some cold fresh water,
03:14so as not to waste any of that goodness,
03:17and also give us a little more liquid to work with.
03:19Since what we'll do is bring this back up to a simmer on high,
03:23and then reduce our heat down to low,
03:25and simmer this gently for at least an hour.
03:28But if you can, try to go 2 hours.
03:31And while that's happening, we can take the meat we removed,
03:34and we can go ahead and shred that up into smaller pieces.
03:37But we don't have to go too, too small.
03:39Since as you'll see, when we move into final production,
03:42this meat's going to kind of shred apart naturally.
03:45And because of that, I don't want to start off too small at this point.
03:49And what we'll do is transfer our chicken meat into the fridge until we need it.
03:53And we'll wait for our chicken broth to finish simmering.
03:56And after about 2 hours or so, mine looked like this.
03:59And then what we'll do is pull that off the heat,
04:02and very carefully strain it.
04:04And then we'll eventually transfer everything back into the pot.
04:07Oh, and I should have mentioned already,
04:09at no point should you skim any of that chicken fat off the top of the broth.
04:13Alright, that stuff's going to be key to achieving the texture we want in the final product.
04:18But anyway, once all that's been transferred in,
04:21what we'll do is turn our heat up to high,
04:23and we will bring our broth and the aforementioned fat up to a boil.
04:27And we will continue to boil until it's reduced by about half.
04:32And no, I don't want you to measure.
04:34I just want you to do it by eye.
04:36And that's probably going to take about 15 minutes or so.
04:39But do not go by time.
04:41Go by appearance.
04:42And when the pot looks like this, and you think you've reduced it by about half,
04:47we'll reduce our heat down to medium,
04:49and we'll transfer our chicken in and give it a good stir.
04:52Oh, and don't worry if it seems like you have too much liquid at this point.
04:56Okay, it kind of looks like that.
04:58But as you'll see, once we finish this final step,
05:01we will have just the right amount of juiciness.
05:04And all this final step involves is to continue cooking this stirring occasionally for about 15 minutes,
05:10at which point our mixture should look something like this.
05:13And what we'll do is grab a spoon so we can give it a taste,
05:17sampling both the meat and the broth.
05:19And what we'll do is season this up with as much salt as you think it needs.
05:23Plus, and just as importantly, we'll season it up with more of our shawarma spice mix.
05:28And we will stir that in and give it another taste.
05:31And I tend to use a pretty heavy hand here,
05:34but exactly how much you add is going to be up to you.
05:37And as you can see, as promised, that chicken is starting to break down and shred apart,
05:42which is exactly what we want.
05:45Since in its shredded state, it's going to be very absorbent,
05:48and it's going to soak in all that amazingly flavorful broth,
05:51not to mention that chicken fat we did not skim.
05:55And that's it. Once we have that seasoned and spiced exactly how we want,
05:59we'll reduce our heat to low,
06:01and we will finish with the last ingredient,
06:03which for me is the freshly squeezed juice from a half lemon.
06:07Although you certainly could add the whole lemon,
06:09if you want this a little more lemony and acidic.
06:12And that's it. Our pulled chicken shawarma is ready to build a sandwich with.
06:16And no, I'm not going with pita bread.
06:19I need something bigger and more absorbent.
06:21So I toasted a sandwich roll in the oven with a little bit of olive oil,
06:24and for me, the recommended amount of meat is somewhere between too much and way too much.
06:30And then as far as finishing touches go,
06:33I'm going to garnish this with some finely sliced red onion,
06:36followed by a nice drizzle of garlicky tahini sauce,
06:39which, yes, we have a recipe for.
06:42And then I think we'll also do a nice extra sprinkling of our spice blend
06:45before finishing up with some fresh cilantro.
06:48And of course, just like regular chicken shawarma,
06:51there are lots of other things you could put on this sandwich,
06:54like maybe some lettuce or tomatoes or peppers or pickled vegetables.
06:58So as usual, that's up to you.
07:01I mean, you are after all the Jeff Bridges of your pulled chicken shawarma sandwiches.
07:05And that's it. I'm going to pick this up and go in for a nice big bite.
07:09Or at least that was a plan.
07:12But I ended up taking two or three bites,
07:14which were nothing short of amazing.
07:17As I said in the intro, this has almost the exact texture of pulled pork,
07:21thanks to that very simple and very effective cooking method.
07:25And besides the incredible texture,
07:27as you might imagine, this tasted very much like chicken shawarma,
07:31which I've had many times in many, many different formats,
07:34but never is a pulled meat sandwich like this.
07:37And I really could not have been happier with how it came out.
07:40Although my bun did want to keep popping open,
07:43which I thought was just because it thought it was so beautiful.
07:46It didn't want me to hide the inside, which could have been part of it.
07:49But also, I think the sandwich was trying to tell me,
07:52put a little more of that garlicky tahini sauce on
07:55and maybe one more pinch of spice.
07:57And if I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times.
08:00Always listen to your food.
08:03But anyway, that's it.
08:04What I'm calling a pulled chicken shawarma sandwich.
08:07And this could obviously be adapted to make some incredible sliders.
08:11Or if you're not into bread, just serve it over some rice
08:14with some tahini drizzled over and all the other fixings.
08:18But whether you do that or make this as shown,
08:21I absolutely loved how this came out.
08:23And I really do hope you give it a try soon.
08:26So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,
08:30a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual.
08:33And as always, enjoy.
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