Bonus: It'll keep up to five days in the fridge. So I set out to try and break the code, to provide the best-yet recipe for all you amateur sauceologists out there. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1/1/20) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1/1/20) and Your California Privacy Rights. The “natural flavors” is where the magic is. Stand in line (and it's usually a long one during the lunch rush), and eventually your reward will come: a pita sandwich or platter topped with spiced, shaved pieces of gyro-style chicken, beef, and/or lamb, maybe with a few ceremonial pieces of sauteed onion and pepper, maybe a tomato slice or two. It' tangy like yogurt sauce, garlicky like a good tahini, but with a luscious creaminess that's all its own. Welcome to Secrets of the Sauce, Epicurious' ode to the magical condiments we drizzle, dip, and slather over our favorite foods. https://www.thrillist.com/recipe/new-york/halal-white-sauce-thrillist-recipes The only problem now? It is a yogurt sauce. I wanted them to reverse-engineer a version I could enjoy on homemade gyros, seared steaks, roasted chicken, sautéed vegetables, and pretty much anything else. http://youtu.be/EkG8fm74muA "Turkish Dip Sauce Recipe" "Delicious Sauce" "Sauces Recipes" [ASMR] Ear to Taste Cooking Trigger "Braingasm" effects! Let's all be clear about this: white sauce isn't yogurt sauce. This popular Southern sauce is used as a dip and marinade. Lemon juice and sumac give the sauce its strong citrus flavor. Once the base is your desired consistency add in the garlic, dill, salt, pepper, sugar and whisk together until combined. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. There’s not much contention when it comes to the halal food cart game, especially when you’re talking about the sauce. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. 2 c Plain yogurt. That made my task slightly easier. To bring white sauce to the masses, I ordered a half dozen combo platters from the aforementioned Halal Guys and challenged the Epi Test Kitchen to find out how to make halal white sauce. Cardamom provides the flowery aroma. White Barbecue Sauce creamy mayonnaise based barbecue sauce is loaded with black pepper. Since 1995, Epicurious has been the ultimate food resource for the home cook, with daily kitchen tips, fun cooking videos, and, oh yeah, over 33,000 recipes. The Best (and Fastest) Takeout Is the Kind You Make at Home, 13 Kid-Friendly Sauce Recipes That Aren't Ketchup, How to Make NYC's Famous Halal White Sauce. I went crazy at my favorite spice shop, buying all kinds of packets and bottles, and in the end settled with four: caraway, turmeric, cardamom, and sumac. Store in an airtight container and chill. The first six ingredients are mayonnaise. For more sauce secrets, step right this way. There’s no added dairy, because that would have to be stated. Use liberally. water in a medium bowl. I think it comes pretty damn close. It's not tahini. ©2020 Group Nine Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/halal-cart-style-white-sauce And it isn't tahini sauce, either. Justifying keeping a squeeze bottle of it at my desk. Why bother, when the cumin-scented aroma of the halal cart is wafting from right around the corner? Epicurious may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Prop Styling by Anna Surbatovich, Food Styling by Olivia Mack Anderson. White sauce smells refreshingly light and flowery, which led me to this: it’s all about the herbs and spices. Store in the refrigerator. Just another Wednesday at the Thrillist Test Kitchen. This creamy, tangy sauce with a garlicky, black pepper punch is ubiquitous on platters of grilled meats sold by halal street carts in major cities across the U.S. We can't stop drizzling it on everything from pita sandwiches to roasted vegetables to crisp salads. Add xanthan gum and mix until it thickens slightly. While The Halal Guys may be coming soon to a storefront near you, they’re never going to give you as much sauce as you want -- fill my inflatable pool, please -- and they’ve finally started charging for extra. Aside from that one major clue, I also had their brand-new sauce packet’s ingredient list as a starting point: soybean and/or canola oil, egg yolks, vinegar, water, salt, sugar, natural flavors, black pepper, xantham gum, and sodium benzoate. But what if, like me, you're allergic to waiting in line—even for the most magnificent sandwich and most superlative sauce? Salt and freshly ground-- pepper. Turmeric enhances all those flavors and gives the sauce an ever-so-slight yellow tint, which matches the white sauce perfectly. Powered by the Parse.ly Publisher Platform (P3). Sauce can be made 5 days ahead. Or what if you aren't even lucky enough to live within a stone's throw of this mysterious white sauce? In a large bowl whisk together mayo, sour cream, and vinegar until smooth; you want this to be a barbeque sauce like consistency so you can add water to get to that point but be sure to only add a little at a time. Stir mayonnaise, yogurt, vinegar, pepper, sugar, dill, garlic powder, salt, and 1 Tbsp. White sauce is another thing entirely, an Americanized concoction reportedly first invented by the owners of one of the most popular carts, The Halal Guys, in the 90's. And aside from a small tweak made in 1993, the recipe has remained unchanged all these years -- you don’t mess with perfection. The major component these recipes were missing was the aroma. Whisk mayonnaise, water, and lemon juice together until smooth and no lumps appear. Caraway brightens it up, giving it that refreshing note. It's so much more. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. “We’re in business because of the sauce,” says Hegazy. Keep batches of this sauce in your fridge and you’ll never have to be that person ever again. © 2020 Condé Nast. Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Prop Styling by Anna Surbatovich, Food Styling by Olivia Mack Anderson, reportedly first invented by the owners of one of the most popular carts, The Halal Guys. All rights reserved. To revisit this article, select My⁠ ⁠Account, then View saved stories. With near equal parts Greek yogurt and mayonnaise, this sauce nails that iconic combo of creamy and tangy, with a dash of extra vinegar for a flavor boost and subtle notes of garlic powder and dried dill adding a bit of aromatic nuance. I watered down the mayonnaise first, because the flavor needed to be subdued, then used xantham gum to thicken it back up. By almost all accounts, The Halal Guys -- the cart with the perpetual line in Midtown -- are cited as the gold standard for white sauce. And it's so umami-packed that you don't just want a dab on your platter—you want a frenetic pattern of criss-crossings from the squeeze bottle—so much that you can barely see the meal underneath. 1 cup mayonnaise (try to find one made of only egg yolks, not whole eggs). Just stir all the ingredients together, and you're done. White sauce is another thing entirely, an Americanized concoction reportedly first invented by the owners of one of the most popular carts, The Halal Guys, in the 90's. Customers actually called it "the white sauce," and that was that. Now that I know how to make halal white sauce, I'm a little worried. Like those legendary Cool Ranch Doritos, this sauce has mysteriously addictive properties. I now just needed to buy vats of mayonnaise and mess around with it. Ad Choices, How to Make Halal White Sauce, and Make Every Food Taste Better. “People steal our bottles and many have tried to copy it, but none have come close.”. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1/1/20) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1/1/20). While their recipe for chicken and rice comes straight from home in Egypt, there’s no translation for their white sauce -- part of the reason they didn’t bother coining a name for it. Add caraway, sumac, cardamom, and turmeric; stir until combined. They succeeded beyond my wildest street-food dreams. People have been trying to recreate it for years; many imitators have failed and some have come close, but given their recent expansion plans, and the release of their sauce packets (which came really close to revealing the secret), there’s newfound interest in what the hell exactly is in white sauce. And wait, I almost forgot: Each and every plate gets absolutely doused in a mysterious, irresistible condiment called, simply, "white sauce.". 1/2 c Chopped fresh mint. New York might be famous for its hot dog carts, but no native New Yorker I know would ever be caught dead at one. 2 tb Finely minced garlic. It's not yogurt sauce. Here is one version: 2 tb Unsalted butter.