Andy Makes Chicken Skewers

[Man] I didn't even ask what shoes you had on tonight.

Nothing, very simple, I've toned it down these days.

[smack]

Reeboks

[Man] Reeboks

I've been upstairs a lot so I couldn't put on my clogs.

[classy upbeat music]

Today we're making chicken skewers.

This is from our May Travel issue,

right over here.

This is from our Lebanon story.

This recipe comes from the restaurant, Tawlet in Beirut.

There's actually a lot of different Tawlets.

It's a restaurant that brings women together from,

not just Lebanon, but from countries around the Middle East.

Some of the women are refugees cooking food from their

respective region and these chicken skewers

is one of those recipes.

This recipe has two components to it.

The first one is a sauce called Toum.

It's a sauce you'll see in Lebanon around the Levant region

that just consists of garlic, lemon juice, oil, and

sometimes egg whites.

In this case, we are using egg whites.

And it ends up being this really kind of, I call it garlic

fluff, like marshmallow fluff.

You see how white it is?

This is almost that white and it has a really,

kind of fluffy texture and really light and airy,

and really garlicky to the point where you don't

really wanna talk to anybody afterwards.

So we're gonna make that first and we're gonna use it

as a condiment but also it's gonna be part of the marinade.

We're going to pulse six garlic cloves.

Two tablespoons lemon juice.

Two egg whites from two large eggs.

From what I was told when I was in Lebanon,

the egg whites a lot of restaurants use just to kind of,

it's for security and just ensure that it'll be stable

and will emulsify and get that airy light texture.

Otherwise, it could just split and you'll just have

like a runny sauce.

[food processor]

And I let this go until the garlic is pretty finely chopped

and almost were you can't see it.

And the mixture's foamy.

So that takes about 30 seconds.

It's already garlic and we..

Go ahead, you wanna get in there?

Get in there bad boy.

Bad girl.

It's a boy but like, actually I don't know how he

identifies himself, so I don't wanna assume.

[smack]

I'm gonna put this back on and turn it on.

And I'm gonna stream in a cup and a half of neutral oil.

A slow stream.

This is kind of the boring part.

Takes a steady hand.

It's that season.

So you can see that the toum's already thickened.

It's gonna get a lot thicker.

So we're just gonna keep on pulsing.

I watched Booksmart this weekend.

[Man] I wanted to see that.

It was great.

Okay, I'm gonna scrape this down one more time.

This is a weird spatula.

For a weird guy.

I've toned it down, I feel like.

The whole process probably takes like five minutes.

But this is also a large batch.

In shawarma, the sandwich, you'll see this kind of

white sauce either in bottles or swiped on,

and people might think that it's a garlicky yogurt sauce,

but really it's toum, most of the time if it's correct.

I love of it on grilled lamb chops.

I've actually had it with sweet potatoes.

Something that's kind of sweet that cuts through

the garlicky-ness of the toum itself.

So you can see how light it is now.

What if it falls?

[mysterious music]

Since there's a good amount of oil,

and eggs whites, it could take a good amount of salt.

We're probably gonna go with about a teaspoon.

[pulsing]

Just pulsing that in.

Okay.

We're good to go.

It's so [beep] delicious, excuse me.

You really have to love garlic.

You have the garlic flavor there, but you're not

bitting into garlic.

But again, there's that little amount of garlic.

And six garlic cloves actually isn't as much as you'll see

sometimes, some people put like eight or 10 cloves.

It's texture is odd, you know?

But it's kind of like wherever you move it, it stays put.

Okay next we are going to make the marinade for the chicken.

Right now I have one and a quarter pounds

boneless skinless chicken thighs.

What I did here is just lay the thighs out lengthwise

and you'll cut them into one inch strips.

So really just cut them in half lengthwise.

And I'm gonna make the marinade here which is,

three tablespoons lemon juice,

a tablespoon coriander, toasted ground coriander.

Three tablespoons neutral oil.

Two tablespoons of tomato paste.

It's a really simple marinade.

The addition of the tomato, it kind of caramelizes

really nicely on the grill.

And then I'm gonna add a quarter cup of the toum here.

And this gonna give, not only a garlicky flavor,

but it's also gonna kind of make the marinade

cling on to the chicken.

Don't be alarmed by the color of the marinade.

It might look like a late Saturday night out,

early Sunday morning, but it taste good.

I'm gonna season the chicken.

Little bit of salt.

I'm gonna pour this over.

All right, I'm gonna toss this around.

If you're gonna grill it the day of,

I would just let it sit for an hour at room temperature.

Or you could place in the fridge for up to 12 hours.

Have you guys seen The Black Gloves?

So here are the chicken thighs.

You can see that their kind of cut into strips.

And so what I'll do is I'll start at one end,

pierce the thigh and then kind of just start overlapping.

Like so.

It's a careful balance of wanting to space them out

so they all get color,

but then not keeping them too spaced out

so that they end up charring too quickly.

You'll have some pieces that are hanging,

that's totally fine.

You could always just go back and pierce it.

So a lot of us aren't grilling in New York unless you're

[clicking sound].

What does that mean?

If you got some money, you got a patio or something.

I don't got a patio.

I don't even have a fire escape.

You can get metal skewers at Clusien's,

one of our favorite shops in New York.

Well that's a monstrous one.

I'm gonna add one more to this.

I still got it.

We're gonna throw this on the grill.

And then we'll a bunch of different salady pickley items

and extra toum.

Oh God!

Imagine this would like scrape me

and just like brush all over your, never mind.

This is medium heat.

Not medium high, you wanna go like low and slow.

We're just gonna brush the grates.

Soon as I oil the grates,

I just place the skewers over.

We're gonna let that sit.

We're gonna turn the chicken skewers every two to three

minutes so they browned evenly, cooked evenly.

The chicken seems to be sticking.

Let it go for another 30 seconds to a minute,

until you can easily pick up the skewers without

the chicken sticking to the grates.

Okay.

So it's been about three minutes.

We're gonna flip these chicken.

This is why I like using

a charcoal grill.

'Cause with the grill grates you kind of get these marks

that I don't care for.

With a charcoal grill, they're more spotted.

So with this, as much as you wanna try it,

it's gonna burn the hell out of your tongue.

So just give it a rest for like five minutes before

you get into it.

All right, I'm gonna throw some pita on here as well.

Just for a few minutes.

I just wanna warm it through 'til it gets puffy.

Okay, I'm gonna transfer the pita over.

And this will act as kind of like a bed for the skewers.

Sometimes I'll open them up.

I just wanna kind of have them absorb the juices.

So these are pickled cucumbers.

They're more Middle Eastern styled pickled cucumbers

that you'll see around the Middle East.

They're definitely a lot more salty and not sweet.

I just will cut them into kind of spears.

I love those.

You'll see a lot of different brands.

This is Sadaf, they're based on San Jose, I love them.

These are pickled turnips.

That are very salty, have a little funk to them.

They have this magenta, hot pink color of sorts.

Usually through like a slice of beat.

I'm gonna just put these directly on here.

I'm going to just take some chopped parsley.

I'm gonna chop some parsley.

What's with all the noise?

Sorry, Sorry.

Thanks Gabby, look at you sticking up for me.

[crosstalk]

Chaotic good over there.

This is something they'll typically serve with

grilled meats you'll see in the Middle East.

Usually done with red meats.

Yeah this is just like a little sumacky oniony situation.

So this is just onions, parsley, I'm gonna add some sumac.

It has a lemony, tangy flavor to it.

And so I love adding it to this.

Another bit of acid in the form of fresh lemon juice.

Little bit of olive oil.

Touch of salt.

And I'll just really get in there.

And really massage the onions until they kind of

break down a bit.

I'll do a little side of that over here.

And a little extra toum.

On the side.

So here are the chicken skewers with the toum.

Super simple.

You could serve these with whatever kind of

pickles you like.

I used the pickles that I like with it.

Again, if you have pita bread, that's great.

If you have lavash or any kind of other flat bread,

you could eat it on it's on or make it a little bit of like

a sandwich which is probably what I'm gonna do.

Tear out some of the warm pita.

I do a swipe of the toum.

Some chicken.

I like the onion route.

Clearly I'm not kissing anybody.

My love life is..

[sad music]

Actually very good.

[guitar music]

A little bit of the pickle.

And I'll leave the turnip on it's own.

I like the turnip, but it can get

a little bit too...

[distorted voice] Just assertive.

Okay I'm gonna be honest with you.

We didn't even let the chicken marinate for that long,

like maybe 10 minutes, but it's still really damn good.

That toum is so concentrated with the garlicky flavor.

And the tomato paste, something kind of magical happens

when it hits the grill and caramelizes.

And even with the one spice of coriander,

it brings a nice kind of spice aspect to the skewers.

Again, the toum is really special.

Even if you don't make the grilled skewers,

I think just knowing about this condiment is really special.

Happy grilling season everybody.

[Man] Nice that looks great, look at that Andy!

[Andy] I would add a little bit more parsley,

but that's okay.

Go in.

Oh yeah.