Welcome chicken shawarma to your healthy-eating plan

This column was first published on Feb. 21, 2018.

More than 30 years ago, when I worked and lived on Chicago's near North Side, I was fortunate to be near not one but two terrific restaurants serving gyros (the Athenium Room on Webster, which is still there; the other, around North and Clybourn, is gone).

Even when an excellent gyro sandwich dripped tzatziki sauce and meat juice in my lap, it brought a big smile to my face. Yes, I smiled even if later my slacks needed to spend time in the washer.

The closest I came to making gyro meat at home was a lamb-based meatloaf seasoned with Gyro spices served thinly sliced with a side of homemade tzatziki sauce and chopped onions stuffed into an oven-warmed pita. Close in flavor, but it dripped on my kitchen counter, not my slacks.

Later, when I wandered off the Mediterranean path and into the Middle East, I discovered what became a second fill-a-pita favorite: chicken shawarma. Chicken shawarma is a close relative to gyros, where overlapping pieces of marinated chicken are roasted on a vertical rotisserie and, when cooked, are sliced off onto pita bread.

There's no way that I can make chicken shawarma as the pros do. No.

There are vertical rotisseries for the home kitchen, with prices starting at $100 plus. No thanks.

My homemade shawarma method? I followed Sam Sifton's (New York Times Food Editor) process of oven-roasting, shawarma-seasoned marinated chicken thighs.

My first attempt at making oven-roasted chicken shawarma was for a dinner group to which we belong, figuring the feedback from those moderately sophisticated diners could help test Sifton's recipe.

I made Sifton's shawarma as written but quickly learned the roasting time of 30 to 40 minutes overbaked my chicken thighs, losing some of the marinade's value.

For a buffet-style group, I set my shawarma test up by slicing the chicken thighs and leaving them in the juices in which they were roasted. I laid out pita rounds, Kalamata olives, thin-sliced English cucumber, chopped fresh tomato and some tzatziki sauce.

At dinner's end, there was no shawarma left, just a puddle of marinade. Positive flavor-note feedback was strong. There were two criticisms: too much lemon and not enough salt.

The next time I made a pan of roasted chicken shawarma, I cut the lemon juice in half and increased the salt by 50%.

This time, I also reduced the roasting time to 25 minutes so that the chicken thighs were just done, using my instant-read digital thermometer to check that they were 160 degrees at the thickest part. Letting them rest out of the oven for five minutes elevated that temperature to 165 degrees.

We had some of those whole chicken thighs for dinner with white rice and some marinade/cooking liquid drizzled over both. Fantastic.

Thanks, Sam, for starting me along the road to a terrific homemade shawarma.

• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at 1leanwizard@gmail.com.

Almost-as-Good-as-a-Restaurant's Chicken Shawarma

Juice from 1 lemon

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil

1½ teaspoons sea salt

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons sweet paprika

½ teaspoon turmeric

1/8 scant teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more to taste)

2 pounds boneless, skinless organic chicken thighs (about 8)

1 large red onion, peeled and cut into 8 pieces

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Make the marinade: Add lemon juice, ¼ cup olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, turmeric, cinnamon and red pepper flakes to a 1-gallon zipper-lock bag; seal and then shake to combine. Unseal the bag, add chicken, press out as much air as possible and seal the bag. Massage the chicken in the bag to coat well with the marinade. Refrigerate for 2 but no more than 12 hours.

One hour before roasting, remove marinating chicken from the refrigerator.

Place the oven rack in the center position and begin heating the oven to 425 degrees. Coat a rimmed sheet pan with the remaining tablespoon of oil. Unseal the chicken marinade bag, add the quartered onion, seal the bag and massage the chicken and onion together to coat the onion. Evenly distribute the bag's contents onto the prepared sheet pan.

Roast the chicken until it reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees and is lightly browned, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and rest for 5 minutes.

The chicken can be served in whole pieces, drizzled with some pan juices and dusted with parsley or sliced and, using oven-warmed pita, made into sandwiches.

Serves 4 or 8 sliced as sandwiches

Nutrition values per thigh with pan juice: 213 calories (48.6% from fat), 11.5 g fat (2.1 g saturated fat), 4.2 g carbohydrates, 1 g sugars, 0.8 g fiber, 23 g protein, 94 mg cholesterol, 536 mg sodium.

Shawarma sandwich side suggestions: homemade tzatziki, diced tomato, thin-sliced English cucumber, olives and feta.

Based on a recipe by Sam Sifton.