There are so many days when I come home from work exhausted and have no desire to spend over an hour in the kitchen cooking up a storm and creating a mess in the sink. That’s usually when I resort to this simple and flavor filled meal. The original msakhan, is a Palestinian meal that is thicker bread, soaked in olive oil and coated with cooked onions mixed in sumac, then topped with baked chicken. It is absolutely phenomenal and probably the messiest food you could ever have, which is why I make the msakhan wraps instead! Msakhan wraps are the quick and easy version of the original! If you’re moving at a consistent pace, they can be done in less than an hour and give you a delicious meal for your family. I love to pair mine with a side of shorabet adas (lentil soup) or fattoush (Middle Eastern salad). 

Ingredients:

2 big pieces of chicken breast, butterflied 

2 large white or yellow onions, thinly sliced

4-5 tbsp Sumac

2 tsp Allspice

2 tsp Salt

1.5 tsp Black Pepper

1 bag fresh Shrak Bread 

*Note: you can add more spices gradually as you cook depending on how much flavor and tang you want.

Directions:

Chop the onions and place in a hot pan with enough olive oil to fill the entire bottom of the pan on low heat and cover to let them sweat (you don’t want them burning) stir every few minutes.

While waiting on the onions, clean/wash and cut the chicken how you normally do (I like rinsing mine in vinegar and salt and sometimes lemon to remove bacteria, then wash with cold water).

Spice the chicken with salt, pepper, all spice.

As soon as the onions are ready, (you want them soft and cooked all the way through), remove them from the pan, place them in a plate on the side.

Add 1 tbsp oil to the same pan and now cook the chicken in there until it’s not pink in the center.

*Note: be sure to drain any excess liquid that appears while cooking chicken.

Once the chicken is cooked, add the onions back in and add about 3 tablespoons sumac.

Mix on low heat, if it needs more sumac add little by little and taste as you go depending on how tangy you’d like it to be. Once you get the flavor you want, turn off the heat and remove from the stove top to cool off.

Get shrak bread and cut into quarters. (Shrak bread is the extremely thin bread that’s freshly baked and can be found at most Middle Eastern grocery stores, if you don’t have any available near you, flour tortillas are a good substitute)

Use a brush and lightly brush a little olive oil on both sides of the bread, then use a spoon to put a nice row of the chicken and onion mix at the straight edge of the bread and roll up, gently tucking in the ends as you go.

Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for about 10-15 mins then broil on low for 5 minutes or so until it’s crispy and golden on the outside.

Plate on a dish, garnish with parsley. Serve and enjoy!