Prepare a marinade by mixing oil, lemon juice, orange juice and red vinegar. Seasonings will dissolve in the oil and vinegar, and the liquid helps them evenly coat the meat; add the spices (cinnamon powder, grated nutmeg, black pepper, ginger powder, cardamom powder, and ground cloves; add the salt and crushed mastic (if used) to the marinade, and whisk well to homogenize.

Place the meat in a large bowl, pour the marinade, stir well, cover with cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour. The meat will slowly absorb the marinade that will eventually bring flavor more deeply into the meat shawarma.

Transfer the meat and marinade to a large stockpot, add the three whole tomatoes.

Place over high to medium heat and bring to a boil, don’t add water, reduce heat to very low, cover the stockpot and simmer for 4 hours. Make sure to check every now and then, there should be a small amount of liquid left in the pot after 4 hours. If it is still heavy with water, let the excess liquid evaporate: Uncover the pot, raise the temperature and cook until you end up with just a small amount of liquid.

The casual way: To build up your shawarma wrap, take a spoonful of the roasted tomatoes in the pot, and smash it onto the pita bread, place some shawarma horizontally onto pita bread, and garnish with sliced onion, chopped parsley, some radishes, and pickles, and drizzle some tahini sauce roll the wrap and enjoy, or alternatively, heat your panini press, move your shawarma wraps to the heated panini press and toast for a few minutes to crisp the pita bread

The festive way: Another option is to serve it on holidays as a centerpiece platter for special dinner parties, transfer the cooked shawarma, including the roasted tomatoes to a presentable platter with all the fixings mentioned like pickles, radishes, sliced onion, chopped parsley with taratour on the side. It is a presentable festive dish