First things first, Mei and I are going to be in Paris this week! We are taking our first trip together to Europe for some sightseeing and great food and taking along our cousin! It’s going to be great fun! We will leave you with posts until we return on Friday and as soon as we rest up, we will recount all of our travels and experiences upon our return! Onto the post!
In the weeks before Mei’s first birthday, I spent much time agonizing over the potential menu, keeping a notebook next to my laptop so that I could jot down all of the ideas that jumped out at me and all the different things I would potentially make so that I would have a long list of items for each “course” to choose from.
One of the items that I really struggled with was a wrap. I wanted to have easy to eat foods, that didn’t need to be kept warm or baked/cooked just before the party, so that I could focus on our guests and enjoying Mei’s first birthday without worrying about food. So I knew I wanted to make some sort of wrap but I didn’t know what variety I would make. I wanted it to also be child-friendly but tasty and somewhat filling so that you could have a few if you wanted, or fill up on any of the other mains that I was going to prepare. The wrap would be a chicken wrap, but the flavor was something that I debated with many of my friends with for some time. It could be BBQ or southwestern or a chicken salad type of thing and then I came across this recipe – it was called chicken shwarma. The recipe called for marinating the chicken in a spiced yogurt mix overnight and then either grilling or baking the breasts before assembling the wraps. It looked promising so the list of required ingredients went on our grocery list and away we went!
The marinade comes together pretty quickly and we opted to mix it directly in the tupperware that we were going to put the chicken into, reducing our clean-up considerably since our dishwasher took hardly any breaks for four straight days; and we kept repeating the recipe until we had made it through an entire container of greek yogurt, I think we made it about 7 times over and it was just enough to marinade the chicken in, since I bought about 14 breasts to serve 24 people.
Friends of ours came over just before the party to help me assemble the wraps and they did an excellent job, freeing me up to finish baking the mac & cheese and get the soup transferred to a crockpot to keep warm. They managed to wrap them in bits of wax paper, securing the bottoms and making it remarkably easy to pick up and enjoy without getting your hands dirty or needing a plate!
My husband loved the wraps so much that we kept the extras in the fridge and ate them for lunch or breakfast and lunch (in his case) for the rest of the weekend and made sure that we would make this recipe again. This marinade would be great, just for a grilled chicken on a warm day and dressed with a bit of yogurt – making it a nice, low calorie indulgence meal. These can obviously be made with larger tortillas, pita bread, naan bread or any other types of “bread” that you can make a wrap with!
Ingredients:
- 2 L chicken breasts
- 1/2 C + 7oz plain Greek yogurt
- 1 TBS minced garlic
- 1 TBS lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- naan/pita/flatbread/tortilla
- romaine lettuce
- cucumber, sliced
- roma tomatoes, sliced
Combine the 1/2 C of yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, cinnamon, oregano, salt, nutmeg and cloves in a bowl, whisking to combine. Add the chicken to the marinade, coating each breast then cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate, at least overnight. Or place the breasts and marinade in a Ziploc bag before placing in the refrigerator.
Once the chicken has finished marinating, grill it or bake it in the oven until it has cooked through. I chose to bake mine at about 350F for 45 minutes to an hour and a half.
Prepare the romain, cucumber, and tomatoes for the assembly. Spread some plain yogurt on your choice of bread, then lay in your romaine leaves, chicken, cucumber and tomatoes, then the chicken. Roll closed and wrap in foil to help keep closed (or wax paper).