#Zankou chicken garlic sauce drivers

Twenty years later, the Iskenderians moved to Los Angeles and introduced their family recipes to American palates. In 1962, Vartkes Iskenderian opened a small restaurant with just two dishes on the menu: chicken and Lule beef kebab.

#Zankou chicken garlic sauce drivers

There would always be a table of LA cops seated in a corner while gangbangers and Armenian cab drivers devoured chicken nearby. The restaurant was a melting pot of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. Here we watched unsuspecting drivers bottom out their cars navigating the poorly placed mini-mall driveway. The best Zankou table was the four-top Formica near the rear window. I knew a vegetarian who said Zankou’s chicken was the sole exception in his avoidance of meat. The restaurant was a great place to spot B-grade celebrities like Nipsey Russell, Arte Johnson and my favorite celebrity sighting, Antonio Fargas who played “Huggy Bear” on Starsky & Hutch. We immersed ourselves in the Shawerma & Chicken Tarna, dipping into the garlic paste with every bite. Known for their spit-roasted rotisserie chicken and luscious garlic paste, Zankou admirers include Pulitzer-prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold, who wrote that Zankou is “good enough to tempt even an ardent Zionist to flirt with the other side.” The musician Beck lyricized Zankou in his song “Debra,” singing that their chicken was “ripe for the pickin’.” Larry David devoted an entire episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm to Zankou framing the restaurant as a Palestinian diner where Jews secretly met their mistresses.īack in the 1980s when I lived in neighboring Los Feliz, I met my pothead friends at Zankou. The site is the original Zankou Chicken, a humble Lebanese restaurant named after a river in Armenia. Store in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks.Īlso, check out our great recipes for baklava and tabbouleh.In a nondescript mini-mall in a rundown section of East Hollywood known as “Little Armenia” sits an innocuous eatery wedged between a laundromat and a liquor store. If the sauce is still warm from the food processor, wait until it cools to cover the container. Transfer the garlic sauce to an airtight container. The sauce should have a mayonnaise-like consistency. If at any point the mixture separates, stop adding oil/lemon juice and continue processing until the mixture comes together. Repeat this process until all of the oil and lemon juice have been incorporated into the garlic. Gradually add 1/2 tablespoon of the lemon juice in the same manner. With the machine running, add 1/2 cup of the oil in a very slow, thin, steady stream.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice as necessary. Place the garlic and salt in a food processor and process until the garlic is puréed. 4 cups neutral oil such as grapeseed or sunflowerĮxamine the garlic cloves and remove and discard any green sprouts, which can make the sauce taste bitter.Fortunately, this keeps for quite a few weeks in the fridge, or you can spread the joy and give a jar to all your garlic-loving friends. In order for the sauce to emulsify properly in the food processor, it requires a rather large volume of garlic and oil. It's inexpensive, neutral tasting, light bodied, and expeller pressed without chemicals.) (My go-to oil is grapeseed oil from Trader Joe's. I like the simplicity of the recipe below, which uses garlic, salt, lemon juice, and oil. Some cooks include additional ingredients like egg whites, cornstarch, potatoes, yogurt, lemon juice, or citric acid. 'Toum' literally means garlic in Arabic, and the simplest recipes call for lots of fresh garlic cloves and oil, pounded with a mortar and pestle (or a food processor) to form a paste. There are lots of different methods for making garlic sauce.

Iconic Neighborhood Restaurants: University Park, Exposition Park, and Adams-Normandie