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Jeff Davis | https://gundogcentral.com | All Hunting Articles

Posted 10/25/2021

Being an Air Force brat, we lived a lot of different places where we got to experience a lot of different things. Of all the places we were stationed, the one place that stands out as the most unique was Turkey. This was way back in the 70's when Pan AM was still a major airline, and the cockpit doors were left open during the flight. I remember getting to meet the pilots, who gave me my very own pair of golden wings, albeit plastic ones, to pin to my shirt, it really made me feel like part of the crew. There wasn't any base housing available at the time, so we lived in some apartment buildings off base. The apartments were a single set of buildings out in a middle of a cotton field with nothing else around them. It felt barren and isolated. Off in the distance you could see a single mountain, who's peak was covered in snow all year round. Coming and going from the apartments, we'd see gypsies picking cotton from the surrounding fields. On a few occasions, a guy would come by the building, pulling a cart, he'd play music while a bear danced around in the parking lot and a monkey collected money with his hat. You would hear prayers being blasted over the air from a nearby Mosque during certain times of the day. We'd took a lot of road trips to go sight-seeing, I remember seeing temples carved into cliffsides in these deep ravines right off the side of the roads and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.

One day dad had brought home this bag of Pistachios, we sat out of the balcony eating them, throwing the empty shells over the edge of the balcony into the cotton field below. We ate nearly half the bag, before dad for some reason, just bite one in half, only to find it was full of worms. We opened a few more, only to find little tunnels running through each nut and more worms. We quickly ran to the bathroom and washed our mouths out with hydroperoxide and maybe a little bit of alcohol.



I've been wanting to I do a couple Turkish inspired meals and what I came up with is this Pheasant Shawarma with Roasted Pepper Hummus with crushed Pistachios and another recipe, Turkish Bob White Quail Kabobs with Red Bulgur, that'll post next. I'm not Turkish, so these aren't going to be authentic flavors, just my interpretation of them. The main reason for doing these two recipes, is to relate them to my memories of Turkey. For this recipe, I wanted to use the Pistachios that Dad and I ate on the balcony ... only minus the worms.

If you don't know what a Shawarma is, it's basically marinated meat, stacked on a skewer and slowly cooked as it turns on a spit. It's then shaved off into thin slices and used on a sandwich or wrap, sort like the Mexican dish, Tacos Al Pastor ... if you ever heard of that. When I think about Shawarma, I think of it more as a Jewish meal, but the process of cooking the meat on a rotating spit originated in what is now Turkey. While not the exact the same thing, I've been wanting to do a rotisserie bird recipe for some time, and this seems liked a good opportunity to work that in. The rotisserie slows turns the meat on its axis while cooking the meat in its own juices.

My wife introduced me to Hummus, I didn't think I would, but I do. I always buy the Sabra Hummus at the Grocery store with the spicy red peppers in it. If you don't know what Hummus is, it's a Middle Eastern Dip made form Chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice and garlic. It's outstanding with pita bread or crackers. This seemed like a good chance to try to recreate it and it turned out to be my favorite part of this meal.

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