/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.17929808]

please can SOMEONE tell me the difference between a kebab, a gyro, a doner kebab, a donair, a shish kebab, and shwarma? its driving me insane and i cannot bridge the cultural gap between these rotisseried fast foods.

i go to the kebab place and ask for a doner kebab, and i get a pitta bread full of processed lamb and salad with garlic and chilli sauce. What are all these other things people discuss, and what varies between them?

[Anonymous No.17929840]

I dunno but gyro, schwarma and döner all imply turning or rotating of sorts.

[Anonymous No.17929903]

>>17929840
but whats different between them

[Anonymous No.17929934]

>>17929903
It's just different languages words for the basically same thing

[Anonymous No.17929976]

i can't comment on much but donair specifically is an east coast canadian thing with a sweet garlic sauce, mostly same meat as doner kebab though. shwarma sometimes means chicken but it's also just another country's word for doner.

[Anonymous No.17930000]

>shish kebab
Meat on skewer
>Gyro
Has fries
>Kebab
Everything else

[Anonymous No.17930119]

>>17929808
Generally speaking there are three distinct varieties of this type of food product. These are far from standard and you will often get a completely different thing for something named in the same in another place, often depending on what ethnicity the person who runs the shop is.
Shish Kebab - This usually means cubed meat (beef/lamb/chicken) on a stick/skewer. Adana is a related product which is minced meat on the skewer, which is used in the same way as the cubed meat.
Kebab/Doner/Shawarma - This is like in your pic. These are all the same thing. One big hunk of meat rotated around and then shaved or cut off and finished in a hot pan. This is then put into "khubz" (which is arabic for bread), of which there will be regional variations but generally means middle eastern flatbread of some kind. The traditional sauce for kebabs is toum, which is oil + garlic + lemon juice + salt mashed together. The meat is usually flavoured with a ground cumin + ground coriander based spice. In some places Shawarma is used to refer to use of samoon, the large diamond shaped bread.
Gyro - This is what Greeks call Doner/Shwarma meat. Additionally, the "meal" called Gyro is traditionally made using thicker Pita bread, which differentiates it from the traditional middle eastern flatbread. The other major difference is the use of tzatziki, or a similar yogurt based garlic sauce rather than the oil based toum. Gyro usually has oregano, garlic, thyme as the main flavouring of the meat, giving it a less earthy taste than a middle eastern cumin/coriander mix. One final major difference is that a gyro place will often have pork as an option but a kebab shop will never have any pork product.
Once the meat go into the bread the vegetables added are usually from the same options (onion, tomato, lettuce, capsicum). Arab places will often have pickled cucumber & turnips with it. Baba ghanoush, Hummus and Tabbouleh are common in middle east kebabs stores, but less in Greek pita stores.

[Anonymous No.17930204]

>>17930119
tl;dr

[Anonymous No.17930213]

>>17930119
In the UK kebabs are seen as a drunkards food, something you order on the way home from a night out and regret later. Is that the case in other countries? Do people in the US / EU eat this stuff just as another option for dinner? Thanks for such an involved response!

[Anonymous No.17930227]

>>17929808
pretty sure shish kebab is just meat and/or veggies on a skewer. The rest are just different regional takes on the meat tornado.

[Anonymous No.17930235]

>>17929808
it's meat.

[Anonymous No.17930264]

>>17930213
Here in Quebec it’s seen as fast food but not necessarily linked with drinking. We also have something called shish taouk where the meat, instead of being served in a sandwich is served with spiced up potatoes and special rice, to which you can add sauce. That’s what I prefer. The closest thing to it would probably be Australian halal meal plates, but the potatoes aren’t fries

[Anonymous No.17930286]

>>17930264
>>17930119
Are you the McChicken guy?

Great responses by the way, learned a lot

[Anonymous No.17930368]

>>17930286
I’m not >>17930119
Who’s the mcchicken guy? I only eat nuggets at McDonald’s since the burgers are too flat. I should try the mcchicken if I go there eventually

[Anonymous No.17930403]

>>17930286
Nope not the "mcchicken guy" whoever that is.
>>17930213
Australia yes they are associated with drinking/late nights as they usually stay open later than when all the other places close. But you will also get them as a lunch/dinner. We also have the "snack pack" which is a container of chips (chicken salt as well of course) with meat on top then garlic sauce (ignore retards who say sweet chilli or tomato/bbq sauce is involved).