With this one, I’m sharing three recipes at once: pita, the famous Middle Eastern arayes, which will be our burger here, and finally the sauce known as tarator, or simply tahini sauce!
The short answer
Arayes is a pita-and-kebab favorite across the Middle East: raw ground lamb is packed into a halved pita, the bread is brushed all over with olive oil and it’s cooked in a pan until crisp outside and juicy inside. Since it’s kebab in bread, I think of it as a burger. This post gives you all three: homemade pita, arayes, and tahini sauce to pour over the top.
Recipe
Pita, Arayes and Tahini Sauce
- Prep2 hr
- CookPitas 2 min · arayes 9 min
- Makes6 pitas + 4 arayes
Ingredients
Pita
- 500 g (2 cups) bread flour
- 300 g lukewarm water
- 10 g active dry yeast (or 6 g instant yeast)
- 25 g sugar
- 10 g salt
Kebab
- 500 g lamb, ground once (half shoulder, half rib)
- 250 g (1 large) onion, grated, rinsed and squeezed dry
- 4 garlic cloves, grated
- ⅓ bunch parsley, finely chopped
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 tsp house spice mix
- 1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tsp salt
Tahini sauce
- 210 g tahini
- 35 g (1½ lemons) lemon juice
- 70 g (½ cup) water
- 2 tsp salt
Equipment
Bowls in various sizes, dough cutter, kitchen towel, flour for working, rolling pin, frying pan, spoon, olive oil and a brush, cutting board, knife, tongs, serving plate
Method
- Stir the sugar and yeast into the water and leave for 10 minutes for the yeast to come alive. Skip this with instant yeast.
- Pour the yeast mixture into the flour and mix for 2 minutes. Add the salt and mix for another 3–5 minutes.
- Knead on an unfloured counter, pushing with the heel of your hand, for 3–5 minutes. Shape into a ball, return to the bowl, cover with a towel and leave until doubled.
- On a floured counter, divide into eight equal pieces, roll into balls and cover with the towel. Rest for 15 minutes.
- Roll each ball out to 0.5 cm thick and 15–16 cm across. Cover again and rest for 15 minutes.
- Cook the pitas in a pan over high heat, flipping every 10 seconds. When they puff up like balloons, they’re done; if they burn without puffing, the pan isn’t hot enough.
- Keep the cooked pitas covered in a towel-lined basket.
- Mix the kebab ingredients without overworking them and rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.
- Mix the tahini sauce slowly, adding water or tahini as needed, until it’s thick like boza.
- Cut two pitas in half. Pack the kebab mixture tightly into the four halves and press down one last time; this is a crucial detail.
- Brush the pitas all over with olive oil. For medium-rare, cook each side for 3 minutes in a pan over medium-high heat; add a minute per side for more well-done.
- Plate the arayes, pour the tahini sauce over them and serve.
Notes
- My spice mix this time was equal parts ground white pepper, smoked paprika, allspice, cloves and salt.
Pita: a call to Tel Aviv
I needed a really good pita recipe for this burger, so I called my baker friend Ben in Tel Aviv and got all the ingredients and technical details from him. I think it’s a pretty easy recipe.
- Stir the sugar, then the yeast, into the water and wait 10 minutes; bubbles on top mean the yeast is alive.
- Pour it into the flour and mix, then add the salt and keep mixing. I didn’t use a machine; by hand it took two rounds of 5–7 minutes. It’s ready when there’s no clumped flour left on the sides of the bowl.
- Knead on an unfloured surface, pushing with the heel of your hand, shape into a ball, put it in the bowl and cover with a towel. Mine doubled in an hour.
- My dough weighed 836 g: eight balls of about 100 g. Shape each in your palm and keep them under a towel so they don’t dry out; let them rest 15–20 minutes.
- The surface must be floured or the dough sticks. No rolling pin? A bottle works. Press from the middle out to the edges: mine came out 16 cm across and half a centimeter thick. Back under the towel for 15 minutes.
How pita puffs in a pan
You can bake pita in the oven too; I kept it simple and used a pan. The one trick: the pan has to be blazing hot. Flip every 10 seconds; the moment you see the balloon, your pita is done. As the pan heats up the later ones puff even faster. Move the cooked pitas to a basket lined with a kitchen towel, keep them covered, and let them cool completely before cutting.
The arayes filling
- The key is the lamb: ground once, half shoulder, half rib.
- Grate the onion and squeeze out the juice; grate the garlic too, and work them into the meat a little at a time.
- Work the very finely chopped parsley in with your fingertips, then add the spices.
- Mix gently and don’t overwork it, so the meat doesn’t lose its juices; rest it in the fridge for 15 minutes.
- The cinnamon in the spice mix gives this kebab a punch of its own.
Stuffing and cooking
Cut two of the pitas in half; you get a nice pocket. Pack the raw meat in without overworking it and press it down with your finger right to the cut edge, so it isn’t one thick slab.
The next step is critical: brush both sides of the pita, and even the cut side where the meat shows, with olive oil so nothing sticks. In a pan over medium-high heat, cook all three sides, front, back and the cut edge, for 3 minutes each. In 9 minutes you get medium-rare arayes, crisp outside and wonderfully juicy inside. For more well-done, add a minute per side.
Tahini sauce
I mix tahini I brought back from Antalya with lemon juice, water and salt. First I dissolve the salt in the lemon juice, then add the lemon to the tahini a little at a time. At some point you’ll see the tahini seize; that happens differently with every tahini, some after one spoonful, some after two. Once all the lemon is in, I loosen it with water until it’s thick like boza. I explain the same logic in my Antalya-style tahini bean salad.
Crisp pita, spiced kebab inside and tahini sauce on top: a beautifully balanced burger.
Keep reading and listening
- Antalya-style tahini bean salad: why tahini seizes and how to bring it back
- Silky smooth hummus
- How to make a burger patty
- Potato butter burger buns, with a comparison of the burger buns on the site
- Fresh, active dry and instant yeast: conversion table
- Burgers on our podcast YBYK (in Turkish): episode 9, Burger 101
