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[jdmessner]

Today is Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week. It always a meaningful week. This year it also comes with an announcement that I will be moving to a new appointment as of July 1 of this year. A lot of mixed feelings when the announcement was made, but over all this will be a good move. I will be moving to Evart, in the central part of Michigan. It is about an hour north of Grand Rapids.

That being said, Holy Week is also a time for some creative cooking. I will be doing a light meal on Maundy Thursday and a steak and egg wrap for breakfast on Easter Sunday, after the Sunrise Service. I have long thought that if anyone gets up and makes it to church by 6:30 in the morning, they should get steak and eggs for breakfast! 

The Maundy Thursday service is supposed to incorporate a light meal as part of the service. It is not a Seder or a recreation of the Last Supper. The theory is that it will be easier for people to talk informally if they are sharing some food. There will be the standard social hour type of staples: grapes, veggie tray, hummus, and a cucumber yogurt dip, with pita bread and chips. I am also going to make a smoked salmon dip, chicken shawarma, and lamb/beef Kafka.

The Kafka will be meatball sized, using a 50/50 mixture of beef and lamb with roasted walnuts, almonds, and pine nuts; onion, tomato, cilantro, red and jalapeno peppers; along with cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves.

The big project is going to be the chicken shawarma. I will be marinating chicken thighs. I don’t know whether to cheat by cutting them into strips and smoking them or using an electric rotisserie that I purchased a while back and have never used. I would rather use the rotisserie, but I am not sure if I dare try something new at this point. I suppose I could do a trial run if I get time early in the week.

I am looking forward to the journey!

[Bentley]

I hope the new Parish works well for you. 

If you can set the rotisserie up so it can rotate vertically and cook them and carve them in true Shawarma style that would be something!  I always found the heat source to be the hardest part for that type of cooking.  But it is pretty impressive to stand there and carve off the meat and give to a guest!

[jdmessner]

If you can set the rotisserie up so it can rotate vertically and cook them and carve them in true Shawarma style that would be something!  I always found the heat source to be the hardest part for that type of cooking.  But it is pretty impressive to stand there and carve off the meat and give to a guest!

If I have time, I'll try to dig out the rotisserie and do a trial run. I doubt I can find a way to do it vertically, but you are right, that would be cool. However, I figure if I can let it rotate and cook on the serving table, that should be an adequate presentation.

Here is the link to my post when I purchased the rotisserie. I think that was the last time I had it out of the box. It got kind of tucked away and forgotten about. I just hope I can find it!!

https://pelletfan.com/index.php?topic=4782.msg55687#msg55687

[BigDave83]

If you can set the rotisserie up so it can rotate vertically and cook them and carve them in true Shawarma style that would be something!  I always found the heat source to be the hardest part for that type of cooking.  But it is pretty impressive to stand there and carve off the meat and give to a guest!

If I have time, I'll try to dig out the rotisserie and do a trial run. I doubt I can find a way to do it vertically, but you are right, that would be cool. However, I figure if I can let it rotate and cook on the serving table, that should be an adequate presentation.

Here is the link to my post when I purchased the rotisserie. I think that was the last time I had it out of the box. It got kind of tucked away and forgotten about. I just hope I can find it!!

https://pelletfan.com/index.php?topic=4782.msg55687#msg55687

I just read your post about the old hardware store. We have also seen most all of the little ones closed up. They were some of the best places to go, I would go to Lowes and if I found something end up at one of the local places to see if they could get it for me.I still have a small one close to me but it is not like the old ones dim lit and as you said the creaking wooden floors.

 If I am out driving around and see one, I have to stop and look around, doesn't take much for me to find something I think I need.

[jdmessner]

The rotisserie looked great. It was never used, and was just like new. After sitting on the hardware store shelf for 50+ years, and in my garage for the last three, what could go wrong? I was all set to fire up a test batch of the shawarma. The chicken was loaded, the rotisserie turned, but the heating element did not heat up. Looks like I will be doing glorified chicken strips on the pellet grill tomorrow. I had such big hopes!! There is a warrantee card I could mail in. Do you think it would do any good? 

[BigDave83]

The rotisserie looked great. It was never used, and was just like new. After sitting on the hardware store shelf for 50+ years, and in my garage for the last three, what could go wrong? I was all set to fire up a test batch of the shawarma. The chicken was loaded, the rotisserie turned, but the heating element did not heat up. Looks like I will be doing glorified chicken strips on the pellet grill tomorrow. I had such big hopes!! There is a warrantee card I could mail in. Do you think it would do any good?

Have you gotten a meter out and tried to see where the problem is? If is has a dial as many thins did way back maybe the contacts in it are tarnished or something like that, check the element for continuity, it could be an easy fix.

[Bentley]

Have you look at all of the power cord to see if it could have been eaten away any where?  Maybe a short?

[jdmessner]

Have you look at all of the power cord to see if it could have been eaten away any where?  Maybe a short?

Things always look better in the morning! I started the test batch way to late at night. I turned on the rotisserie and no heat. I fiddled around with it a bit more. Still no heat. Then I thought I would just let it run for a bit, perhaps it needed more time to heat up. As soon as I left the kitchen and sat down in the living room, the power went out and came back on. It did it about three times in a row. Our new doorbell set off an alarm I had never heard. For a brief minute I thought I probably started some electrical fire and the house was about to burn down! As it turns out the whole neighborhood experienced the power outage, so I don't think I need to take responsibility for that. It was just the timing of everything that made me say enough, I am going to bed!

In the light of day I discovered the prongs for the heating element were not completely connected. The way the heating element fit into the pan made it hard to see the connection with the plug. It felt snug, but it just needed a little more oomph behind it. Dave, you were right, it was an easy fix! So I will give it a try this afternoon and see how it goes!

[BigDave83]

That is great news. Can't wait to see what you make with it.

[jdmessner]

Mixed results tonight. Got the rotisserie going and it worked well. The only problem was that I did not allow enough time to cook. Everything I read said 2-2 1/2 hours. I allowed 3 1/2 - 4. It probably needed at least 6 hours. I ended up slicing it in strips and cooking it on the stove top. The rotisserie did give it a little color and it tasted good.

The beef and lamb kafta and salmon dip were a hit. I also made a cucumber yogurt dip, but I forgot the hummus. Overall it was a good night.

Next up is steak and egg wraps for Easter Sunrise service!

I don't know why I think I take more pictures than I do and they don't turn out nearly as good as I think they did at the time.

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[Bentley]

Your recipe cooking time would not have taken into consideration carving the shawarma as it cooked would it?  So you exposed the less cooked meat as you went?

[Bar-B-Lew]

Am I the only one to be surprised to see the meat cooking over top of and dripping grease onto a heating element?

[jdmessner]

Am I the only one to be surprised to see the meat cooking over top of and dripping grease onto a heating element?

The beauty of having the element on the bottom, is that you also get that beautiful "flame broiled" sear!!

I had thought about that dilemma, but rationalized it by figuring it wasn't too much different than cooking directly over charcoal or a gas burner. The handbook also says you can cook the meat tableside, but I would not recommend doing that. For me, one of the big selling points for pellet grills is not having to worry about flareups.

The cooking time did not take into account the carving. I didn't find anything directly equivalent to cooking shawarma. I was actually basing the time off of a leg of lamb recipe in the Faberware Gallery of Broiler and Rotisserie Masterpices! 

[yorkdude]

Am I the only one to be surprised to see the meat cooking over top of and dripping grease onto a heating element?

We had an electric Jenn Air cooktop years ago that was basically the same thing. It had several interchangeable inserts that you could easily switch. Griddle, coils, french burners and an element that sat above 2 cast iron (I think) rock formed things. We LOVED the latter. It exhausted in the middle of the cook top. I wish I would have kept it when we remodeled and went with gas. We never had any problems with it cooking anything including bacon. It was a pain to clean though. It had 2 places for canning jars underneath to catch the grease.
If you google “vintage jenn air downdraft cook tops” you will see what I am talking about. They are expensive used……dang I should have kept it.

[jdmessner]

YD- We had a Jenn Air like you described back in the day, I loved it.

We made steak and egg breakfast wraps this morning. We will warm them up for Easter breakfast along with my wife's cinnamon rolls.

I used Gary's Quick Steak for the wraps. I had not seen this type of product before. Now I am wondering how I made it this far in life without it. It came  with 9 individual packages to a box, with flavor packets. Cooked it frozen and it was done in a matter of minutes. Loved the flavor. I only found out about it because they were handing out samples at Sam's Club. That may be the first time I have ever purchased something after trying a free sample.

I will try and post a few pictures. For some reason I have been having problems with my phone and/or internet when it comes to putting up photos.