Doner kebab, or shawarma, is one of the most popular street foods in the world. The Ottoman Empire invented the cooking method–cooking meat on a vertical spit–in the 19th century. It sounds basic, and yet it is not basic at all because no one seems to do it right. Except in Turkey, specifically Gaziantep, where I lived for two years and ate shawarma at least five times a week.
I fell in love with a lot of the cuisine in Turkey, but some of it was too rich–you can’t have Adana kebab every day and lamb isn’t suitable for a quick meal in the summer heat. Shawarma is healthy enough you can eat it every day for lunch and feel fine, but is also an incredible late night snack. Chicken is by far my favorite. I love the way it crisps and takes the spices.
Shawarma in its essence is a vertical spit of meat that is stacked on top of itself with spices (cumin, salt, pepper, paprika, turmeric, and more), slowly roasted around a fire–the best ones are done with actual charcoal, though now you’ll just see them done with grills–with thin, thin, slices cut off as it roasts. A professional slicer balances the perfect line between just cooked and crispy, then takes the meat and catches it in a flatbread called pide.
Pide is delicious. It’s crispier than the flatbread you buy in a store, and thinner than a pita, but somehow chewier, almost, with little bubbles. It’s supposed to be cooked on the side of a clay oven. The best ones come from the baker that you can see from the shawarma shop. Usually, the pide is delivered to the shop in plastic laundry tubs with dish towels over the top keeping them warm, with fresh deliveries arriving every 30 minutes or so during busy hours.
Now, the most skilled shawarma makers are experts in dabbing the pide in the drippings. They’ll skim the bread along the chicken fat and roasted juices very quickly to get a little base of flavor, then slice the thinnest pieces–you should almost be able to see through them–into the pide. The key with the chicken is it has to be high-quality, it has to be spiced, and it has to be sliced right. It should almost have the crunch of fried chicken, yet it’s not fried at all, just roasted in its own juices. It can be a blend of dark and light meat, but the skin needs to be on for flavor and texture.
Technically, you can stop right there, that’s enough. You’ve got shawarma, and everything else is extra. Now you get to take charge–this is the exciting part. Usually, added ingredients are behind the counter and you tell the guy what you want. But at my favorite spot, they hand you the sandwich and you can go build it yourself.
What I think is best is a little bit of marinated, purple cabbage for crunch. Then you’ll add what’s like a poor man’s fattoush–cucumber, tomato, thinly sliced lettuce, and sumac. Put that right in there. There’s a spiced chickpea smash that I love, then they have thinly sliced red onions with sumac, and of course pickled vegetables: pickles, carrots, white cabbage. That’s where I would go nuts. Oftentimes, you’ll get fries on your shawarma. I don’t like fries on mine because I think they get soggy, but if you want to go carb on carb they’re a popular addition. I would usually order the fries then take them out and eat them while contemplating my additions.
And that’s it. It is quite simply the best lunch you could possibly have. I love the sumac that is a little bitter, a little lemony, mixed with the richness of the chicken fat, and on top of that the vinegar and the crunch of the cabbage. You don’t need any sauce. It’s a perfectly balanced sandwich that has all the moisture you want but doesn’t lose any structure because the moisture comes not from a sauce but from the pickled vegetables and the chicken that pulls apart. The whole thing has a little chewiness, almost like when you think of the best carnitas, then the greens mixed in balance the intensity of the flavors and it’s all wrapped in this warm, slightly chewy bubbled bread. All for the grand total of about $1.30.
I miss it so much. It’s just amazing. It’s the perfect sandwich. And it’s truly the best in Gaziantep, where there is a really strong culinary tradition. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site just for the food. I eat shawarma all the time in a lot of countries. Most make it with the lavash bread and grill it, which is good, but not the same. In Gaziantep it’s just fresh. It’s the chicken–you have to do it the traditional way with the big, 3.5-foot long skinny blade (not those electric cutters), with the guy who looks like he’s been back there for 36 years who’s just ripping through meat as fast as he can go, dipping it in the drippings–he’ll look for the right spot that’s cooked perfectly, a tiny bit brown, the right blend of meat–then slice it down into your sandwich. They got the balance right too, no one else does that. Too thin of chicken, too thick of chicken, not enough vegetables–but they do it right. The bread in Gaziantep is always done well, and almost always from a bakery next door. The pide is specific to Turkey, and the assortment of the side fixings is unique.
I also love it because I went to the same shop almost every day for two years and the people behind the counter knew who I was. I was the only American who would come in, and I spoke just enough Turkish that I could have the smallest conversations, and they would test out their few words of English on me. It was all very basic, but lovely. And what a deal– when I was feeling fancy I used to splurge to get extra chicken for an additional two lira, bringing the total cost up to around $1.60.
I’m pretty sure my experience is akin to anyone who moves somewhere new and finds something they love, then also finds normalcy in it. This lunch routine became a normal thing for me and I loved that. Obviously anything else is an ersatz replacement. But also–it’s just so fucking good.
