If you want to have a delicious lunch, a tasty dinner or a late night snack, the shawarma is your best option.

There are many styles to this very well-known dish, but none of them taste as good as the Middle Eastern shawarma, here we will talk about the secrets that makes the Middle Eastern shawarma stands out.

First of all, let's answer a very common question. What is Shawarma?

Shawarma is made of marinated meat that has been slowly roasted on a vertical spit of several hours, although, originally the shawarma was made of lamb meat, the Arabs took it above and beyond by introducing the chicken shawarma, you might as well find different kinds of meat used in different spots of the world. 

Once cooked, the meat is then carved off in thin strips and spread onto a flat bread along with several dressings, like garlic cream, pickles, spicy sauce, and boomeranged sauce. The bread is then wrapped and placed on a heater and pressed to give the bread that special crunch. The type of the bread also may vary in different regions, but the Middle Eastern Saj bread will always be the best.

How did it start?
The chefs of the Ottoman empire were among the first to notice the benefits of roasting meat vertically, they came to a conclusion that horizontal roasting causes the flames to rise, scorching the outside of the meat, vertical roasting means the flames can be controlled allowing the meat to be roasted nice and slowly, and perfectly cook it.'

 However, the shawarma we all know and love, started in the late 1800's thanks to a man named Iskender Efendi, it's believed that he made the first shawarma around 1870 in Bursa, Turkey. And before long, the delicious dish had spread to cultural cuisines across the Middle East, the Mediterranean and beyond, evolving as it went.

So, what makes the Middle Eastern shawarma so special?

The answer is simply the garnish, shawarma is all about the tasty sauces that accompany the meat, and pickles. Pickled vegetables are what take the shawarma to a whole new plane, especially the Middle Eastern style of the cucumber pickles.

And there you have it, the secret still lies in the special sauces and the way to make them, but that's a different story.

We can however say that, the combination of every element, from the chicken and its spices, to the special bread used and the special sauces added to the warp. All combined give the Middle Eastern shawarma it's unique taste and make it stand out against other variants.