Dude I thought your old videos were already great but the stuff you put out nowadays is so well articulated and straight-forward. Thank you for respecting everybody's time, and putting up some great cooking info in this format. KEEP IT UP!!!!
My thoughts exactly. His videos were on my home feed even though I don't watch food/cooking videos but I found myself willing to click each one that shows up because there's no filler to pad out the time. He respects your intelligence and time by getting right into it from the first second. I wish this format was the norm rather than the exceptiom.
Just for the record, we go even thinner with our arayess in lebanon. Basically like ur smearing cream cheese on arabic bread. I dont like kafta at all, but i absolutely love arayess. Shoutout to Refika's kitchen in Turkey with her lifehacks!
@@internetshaquille yess!! if you can find çiğköfte in a Turkish restaurant in your area I highly highly highly recommend you try it. It's a raw veggie and bulgur paste they make into sandwiches in Turkey, they layer it with lots of veggies a squeeze of Lemon and pomegranate molasses (and sometimes break some doritos in there) and its vegan and long lasting and amazing.. She has an English and turkish video on it. Congratulations on the Baby!!!! Hope Bree is recovering well! And baby is healthy!
You represents the pinnacle of RU-vid cooking tutorial, not only did you tell us how to make a food, you tell us how to substitute or cut cost if we choose, this is how all cooking videos should strive to be
And he doesn't spend ages dragging the viewer through slow, awkward cuts. He keeps it simple and quick while also being very easy for beginner to get. He's honestly one of the reasons I felt brave enough to cook more adventurous meals.
Recipe aside, this is hands down one of the best produced and formatted videos ive ever seen on youtube. No filler, no cringe, all of the information you need and nothing else. That little bit thrown in on 'how to substitute spices' while not relevant to me personally, must be incredibly valuable for others. This is the platonic ideal for what a video should be and this video should be archived as an archetype for which other cooking videos are done. Well done man, this video was by definition, perfect
Brother Net Shaq, those look positively Mashallah. On the note of using tortillas, totally acceptable! Or if you get the ultra-thin lebanese pittas those folded in half are great. Next up Hawawshi!
Hahah I was watching thinking, this looks like a dish you'd see on MiddleEats. Makes me happy to see one brilliant food content creator commenting on a another!
Ok, made this tonight. Time: Almost exactly an hour for an intermediate cook to make it from the first onion chop to arayes on the table. Difficulty: the processor does most of the work, although the sticky meat makes it a bit tricky to get it consolidated and into the pita. I pan-fried in cast iron on low and it browned nicely, and it gave me time to make a tzatziki. Taste: Wonderful seasoning. I made baharat from the spices you outlined, easy enough. The cumin and coriander push it out of Christmas into savory. I ended up not needing to use the tzatziki, so now I guess I'll make falafel. Overall: good recipe. Now that the spice mix is done it will go quicker next time, probably 45 start to eat.
thank you for this. I have a regular cast iron, without the grill, and I was worried if it would come out alright. It came out great, you just gotta go kinda low and slow with it, and hit it with an instant read thermometer to make sure the meat cooks all the way. But if you follow the video and make sure you don't overstuff the pita, the meat will cook quickly. You need to use less meat than you think, because it certainly thickens up as it cooks.
@@frogchamp6969 its actually not cool to say stuff like that dude... ya gotta be nice or say some thing of substance. I've decided to give you a thumbs down so you understand how serious this is.
I just adore you and your format. I've loved cookbooks and cooking shows since being a kid with the late 90s food network and your vids make me feel inspired in that way I haven't felt since those days. they're doable, exploratory and FUN ! thanks for giving me that channel 54 feeling 20 years later !
I appreciate that you try to include vegetarian options in your videos. Even when the video is about a meat dish, I always watch because I know I'll learn something I can apply to my vegetarian cooking.
I learned about these a while ago from Middle Eats and make them using Beyond mince. I add some olive oil to the mix because there isn't enough fat in faux mince to get the pita really crispy but it works out delicious! Ghee would work even better if you eat dairy.
@@GothicPotato2 that or good old potatoes. My mum's vegetarian, so my adaptation of this recipe for her would consist of semi boiled potatoes kinda mashed, mixed with minced paneer (or any cottage cheese) and breadcrumbs to soak the excess moisture from the cottage cheese. Soy granules also do the same job, and are quite cheap and super popular here already. Same with mycoprotein in UK, meat alternatives have existed for decades but it's great to have so many options these days.
Love all the tweaks you included at the end. Almost all recipes are meant to be guidelines or jumping off points, so I love when foodtubers embrace that and teach people how to adapt recipes for themselves. It makes cooking less intimidating.
I literally just started your chicken tinga from your previous video. My house smells amazing and I'm waiting for those last few hours. Now finishing this video and I already want to go back to the store and get the meat to start this tomorrow. Keep the hits coming, Victor!
@@Firetailisafk Hey man! How many of the peppers did you use? We went on the lower side and it was mid-high on the American heat palate. We also chose to put guac on top, and cogita cheese. Anyway...at least you gave it a shot!!
Legitimately never thought I'd actually get to leave a comment like this, but thank you for giving arayes the exposure they deserve! We used to call them meat pies in my house, my mom would make them alongside fatayer which we naturally called spinach pies. Random notes/hacks for the lazy among us: 1) I generally prefer my arayes a bit less greasy (the way you make them), but my mom used to lay the olive oil on THICK. She'd lay them flat in a round tray and make sure they were practically sitting in a layer of oil so they wouldn't stick, and then brushed them with oil as well before baking them. The resulting arayes would be extremely crispy, having had the oil and beef fat soaked all the way through and essentially frying the bread. 2) For the spinach pies, while you could make the dough from scratch, at some point my mom switched to store-bought pizza dough and we could never tell the difference. YMMV obviously, but if that's an option that might convince you to try making them, I'm begging you to do so. 3) Can confirm that flour tortillas from the grocery store served us well whenever we didn't want to commit to a whole massive thing shrak bread. With this in mind, labeneh + halal spam + shrak is the perfect snack wrap. Adjust as necessary.
Videos like this are why I tell everyone learning to cook about this channel. Ive been cooking for years, but i love learning new stuff from creators like you
To add a comment on the veggie version, I absolutely recommend going with Impossible Meat for these. They're insanely good, honestly taste just like the meat ones, and it's nice to offer the same options to company of mixed diets (ie. meat eaters and non-meat eaters). Just make sure you make some extras, since these are the absolute perfect thing to throw in the fridge and reheat later for a quick lunch or dinner. Arayes are seriously some of the most amazing and simplest things you can make, and since they're not super common to most US folks you also get bonus cool points with friends and (most importantly) yourself.
Thank you thank you THANK YOU for the dexterity consideration. I screwed my hands up at an old job and now have to baby them constantly to not be in pain all the time. Having the option to just fold everything in a tortilla is a massive lifesaver.
Since I'm on the other side of the world I can't easily get the Mexican stuff, but baharat is just a few minutes walking. What a nice and unexpected video.
I agree that supermarket tortillas are terrible. But, not because they're thick. Mostly it's because they taste like cellulose gum and sadness. I'm from Northern New Mexico where our tortillas are thick and fluffy (like angels wings to quote abuelita). But, at least when I was a kid, people didn't really eat things like burritos. Tortillas were used for scooping up stews like chile verde and carne adovada. If you wanted bread wrapped around a filling, you were much more likely to get a stuffed sopapilla. Nowadays, I eat more burritos and I'm coming around to those paper thin Sonoran style tortillas but don't write off good thick tortillas there's a reason everyone loves las gorditas.
the fact that you adress all the complaints and questions i would have aswell as adress dietary concerns makes this one of the best cooking videos ive ever seen :)
As someone who lives in a country where we get between 0 and -10 types of foreign spice mixes, i deeply appreciate the thought of including how to makes the mixes on your own
New to the channel and just subscribed. As others have said, I LOVE the format of this video! A solid recipe w/ multiple substitutions matter-of-factly laid out in less than 10 min. This Lebanese chica approves!
Man, I'm so happy with where youve come as a creator. You've always been a couple cuts above the rest, but I am so glad that you were able to be happy enough with youtube. You're great for the platform.
You’re my hero Shaq, I was just thinking how crazy it is to be connected with other cultures so easily even though I’ve never heard of these. can’t wait to make these this weekend love you
Just made this, it slaps. Cooked on a cast iron griddle and weighed it down on top so it would make contact. Made a little taziki sauce and some isreali salad for the side and it's great. Also used the kefta seasoning on some grilled chicken for the non red meat eaters and it's great on chicken too.
You are so so so thougthful in these videos. As a vegan, I was just going to replace the meat with an alternative from the start, but for you to take that time to express to us that we can still eat it was awesome
This reminds me a lot of lahmacun (what some people call Turkish pizza) - really similar ingredients and prep, but the execution is just a little different. Definitely worth trying if you like this recipe!
Love this ad format - No annoying plug at the beginning that's too short for me to even skip, and the ad is CLEARLY delineated as such. None of this "integration" BS.
Bro i was thinking about this channel the other day (was remembering how to wash dishes efficiently) and then this popped up on my dashboard. Glad to see u still at it
This is a great explainer video, and I appreciate that it isn't meant to be a full meal guide, but just having it paired with like... One veggie dish on the side... It would go a long way to making this look like an appealing main course. Just roast some broccoli, or make a quick tomato, cucumber and onion salad for the side.
You're probably the only one so far who made it right, but we go even thinner in the stuffing, and extra points if you top with toum or pomegranate molasses 👌
This is my favorite recipe I've ever seen on the internet. If for some reason someone sees this, the trader joes Lavash works great for this with 2-3 minutes per side in the broiler on high.
I'm upset I'd never heard of Arayes and now I'm thinking of all the different flavors I could make them as. I won't dare call them Arayes when I stuff Montreal steak spice in them but it's bound to be FANTASTIC
Tip: At 0:30 grab some cheesecloth or a clean rag and put the mixture in then grab the ends and make twists until it squeezes the mixture. Its faster, you can process more if you got strong hands and it removes more liquid. Also use this if you're making crispy fried onions!
Sweet curry powder has basically everything listed and literally no actual curry in it (curry adds heat/peppercorn notes) so that works very well for many recipes that call for most of what I call "the brown spices" plus a few extra.
I make these on rotation so have all the spices and lamb is definitely the way to go! Tzatziki on the side. Thanks for giving this dish the love it deserves! ❤
Tried it at home, great recipe, made my own yogurt sauce with dill and lemon juice to accompany it. Ended up smelling like onions and comino for the next week but its so worth.
Yeah, my uncle made this for us at a barbeque recently. They taste amazing. You don't need a sauce. But come on, just get the pita bread, it'll be so much better, I implore you. Also now it's my turn to make this now that I know a good recipe.
never have any of the reservations shaq always makes sure to account for but it still makes me feel special for some reason, definitely in the conversation for the best to ever do it
I was already loving this video so much and planning on figuring out to make it plant-based, then you went above and beyond and did that too! Can't wait to try this 😎
