Armenian Garlic Rotisserie Chicken Pita Tacos

My hubby came home from work today to see me photographing the results and didn’t even bother to sit down before taking a big bite and saying “wow, that’s amazing.” I just replied, “Yeah, I know!” since I took a big bite out of it before handing it to him. Want to know the secret to the chicken? A slow cooker. Yeah, I’m not even kidding. The crispy, juicy, sticky chicken? Right out of the slow cooker with only garlic salt and black pepper added to it.

 Take raw skin on and bone in chicken thighs, and put them into the slow cooker skin side up. Sprinkle on a liberal amount of garlic salt and black pepper. Nothing fancy here, probably about 1tsp of garlic salt and about 1/2t of black pepper. Put on low for 8 hours or high for 5 hours. NO WATER, nothing else at all. Trust me. Sometimes, I even throw garlic cloves in too. Here is the thing, the chicken is going to release liquid and fat from the skin. The garlic cloves you toss in between the chicken pieces are going to basically become garlic confit. But that is a story for a different day. Once your slow cooker is done, you’ll be left with this….

 Yep, from a slow cooker. With about as minimal amount of effort as you’ve ever put into cooking something. This chicken is really just a tender, juicy fall apart rotisserie style chicken.

Now we move on to the Armenian Garlic Rotisserie Chicken Pita Tacos. Take a piece of pita bread, and put it onto your stovetop on medium high. Let the flame crisp up the bread and add a bit of color to it. Put a layer of rice [I used baked brown rice pilaf, but any kind of rice will work for you here], then pull the chicken apart into small pieces. This won’t be difficult as it is so tender. What will be more difficult is not eating it as you are pulling it apart.

 Next comes the garlic paste. Ohhh, the garlic paste. This is where Zankou Chicken makes it’s customers into fanatics. It took a bit of online detective work and three trial runs to perfect this recipe. Put on a liberal amount, then add some diced fresh roma or on the vine tomatoes and kalamata olives. Finally a sprinkling of parsley and chopped up pickled vegetables and you’re ready to eat. The taste of these Armenian Garlic Rotisserie Chicken Pita Tacos are a VERY close alternative to Zankou and I promise it will not disappoint

 Other alternatives to these ingredients? Instead of rice, you can put lettuce or hummus. Instead of chicken, you can use falafel or sliced lamb. Instead of garlic paste, you can USE THE GARLIC PASTE! Trust me on this. I can not stress this more strongly. Instead of the pickled vegetables, you can put jalapenos or the more traditional beet colored pickled turnips.

To get the recipe for the garlic paste that goes in these Armenian Garlic Rotisserie Chicken Pita Tacos, view this post: Zankou Chicken’s Secret Garlic Paste.