Shawarma chicken panzanella
Everything browns on one pan, including the bread, which is the whole trick.
At a Glance
Story
Toast the bread on the same pan as the chicken, never separately. Torn pita sitting under and around the meat catches the fat as it renders and the starch the chickpeas give off, so it seasons while it crisps. Bread toasted alone in a toaster comes back dry and tastes of nothing, and then you spend the dressing trying to fix it.
Ingredients
- 10 oz chicken breastcut into bite-size pieces
- 1 × 15 oz can chickpeasdrained and rinsed dry
- 2 pocketless pitas or flatbreadstorn into bite-size pieces
- ½ tbsp shawarma seasoning
- 3 oz baby kale
- 3 tbsp romescojarred is fine
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 oz goat cheese
- 1 oz Castelvetrano olivespitted and torn (optional)
- mint leavestorn, to finish
- olive oilsalt, pepper
Method
A panzanella that takes twenty minutes rather than a day, because the pita is doing in the oven what stale bread usually does on the counter.
- Oven to 450°F. Line a sheet pan with foil. Drain and rinse the chickpeas, then roll them dry in a tea towel.
- Pat the chicken dry, season with salt and the shawarma seasoning, which brings its own pepper, and toss to coat.
- Chicken, chickpeas and torn pita onto the pan. Olive oil, salt, pepper, toss, then spread out in one layer. Bake 11 to 13 minutes, until the chicken is through and the pita has gone gold. The chickpeas will crack and jump about in there. Leave them to it.
- Meanwhile, whisk the vinegar with a good slug of olive oil in your largest bowl. Season.
- Tip the hot pan straight into the bowl. Add the kale and the romesco and toss hard. The kale wants to wilt slightly and the romesco wants to coat everything, so keep going past the point where it looks done.
- Crumble over the goat cheese, tear in the olives if you're having them, and scatter the mint at the last moment.
Best eaten while the pita still has some resistance left in it.
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