شوربة سندويتش مع شاورما /soup o' shawarma sandwich

شوربة سندويتش مع شاورما /soup o' shawarma sandwich

A recent visit by my family to the newly remodelled and grandly reopened with rather mixed reviews Salam, as reported here, entailed an unfortunate mix-up of a special order which in turn resulted in decreased appetite on the part of Lucantonius and the subsequent transportation homeward of one essentially wholly uneaten, maximally simple pita sandwich stuffed with a generous portion of well prepared beef & lamb shawarma. For various reasons, said previously owned/experienced sandwich soon passed into my personal possession but, after a couple of days in the icebox...

... it appeared ready to transcend its original rôle and, upon being regarded with the eye of an experienced food-refurbisher, the seemingly forlorn pita and its fleshy contents suggested that they be best served in a wholly new format and thus, as the temperatures dropped here in the badlands of the Shikago Maghreb (Near West Side)... the شوربة سندويتش مع شاورما /soup o' shawarma sandwich was born:

The preparation went as follows: I started with a soffritto of leeks in olive oil with some fresh herbs from the garden (anticipating the hard freeze, I've been using the fresh herbs a lot of late). To the soffritto, I added a tablespoon or two of passata, a little meat stock and, since this was intended to be a quick lunch, a can of cannelini beans, thoroughly washed. After initial seasoning, I brought the soup to a boil, turned it down to simmer for a few minutes...

... and then added the oh-so-promising, previously owned/experienced sandwich of shawarma from Salam:

The last ingredient to the soup was a bit of homemade tahini (sesame paste, salt, garlic, lemon juice, water).
To gild this lily of a five-to-ten-minute soup preparation, all one needs is a couple of fiercely hot Portuguese peperoncini sott'aceto:

I hadn't really thought about it as I was concocting this soup o' sandwich but when I sat down and tasted it, I realised suddenly how similar it was in a way to a dish I love and used to make with some regularity, namely, the Lebanese fasoolya bil Lahmeh, for which I generally used the recipe which appears in a terrific little book by a dear friend of mine. I strongly recommend to those unfamiliar with that dish to make it from scratch and I certainly didn't and don't intend this bit of culinary recycling to serve as a substitute for proper cooking. But, for someone who really hates wasting food (and most especially meat), this soup o' sandwich that I threw together was surprisingly delicious, with a particularly pleasing contrast of textures between the smooth mushiness of the dissolving pieces of pita bread and the more toothsome but differing textures of the beans and the meat.

Bon prô,
Antonius

Links to other recipes and cooking notes by this writer: viewtopic.php?p=55649#55649

When I taught school the teachers got free lunch. Whatever was being served for lunch one day became soup the next. I don't remember all of them, but I do remember "Philly steak sandwich" soup and "Cream of fish stick" soup...