Midweek cooking is a balancing act. Most of us don’t have hours to spend on a Tuesday night working on an elaborate meal – including planning ahead, shopping for ingredients, prepping ingredients and the cooking itself – but that doesn’t mean we want to give up the flavours, aromas and textures of good cooking. It can be a hard balance to strike, and finding inspiration isn’t always easy.

“I think people think [midweek cooking] is all a bit same-same, and they just get a bit bored,” says Diana Chan. While the former MasterChef winner and cookbook author isn’t immune to the midweek inspiration rut, she finds it in plenty of places – from the endless variety of wok-tossed meals in her latest cookbook, The Golden Wok, to drawing on the flavour memories of travelling the world.

Sometimes she skips looking for inspiration entirely and lets someone else think of what she should cook – but lets her travels influence what meals or recipes to choose. This Middle Eastern-inspired lamb shawarma recipe from QuiteLike, for example, reminds her of those international jaunts.

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“Lamb shawarma – I had a lot of that in Türkiye,” she says. “It’s different, of course. We’re not [cooking] it on a spit and having the ambience of it. But being able to just cook the piece of lamb at home, have fresh pita bread, yoghurt and all the condiments and the fresh salad – that’s pretty close to the real deal.”

QuiteLike meals are recipe kits for food lovers delivered to your home, which means no shopping for ingredients and searching for meal inspiration. The process of putting this one together is simpler than the street-food original, but it’s no less packed with flavour. It’s an overseas trip for your tastebuds, with the smoky coriander and cumin spice blend acting as your passport to the flavours of Turkey.

“Step-by-step: you’re marinating the lamb, and then whilst that’s marinating, you can get on with the rest,” Chan says. “You can do the yoghurt dip, and then you can prepare the salad and warm the pita bread.” While the recipe has oven temps and times, you can easily take it out early or leave it in slightly longer for the doneness you’d prefer. “I definitely think medium, medium-rare for me,” she says.

Once the lamb is cooked and rested (“Resting is very important – it seals in all the juices.”), this is a meal that’s best served family-style to bring everyone together. “You can have it DIY at the table, and then everyone can help themselves,” she says. “Once the cooking is all done, everyone can just build their own shawarma.”

The base recipe on its own results in a delicious meal with no modifications needed. Follow it all to a tee the first time you make it, then Chan says you can feel free to make it your own next time with flavours and ingredients you have on hand. “If you have extra bits in the pantry, like sumac, and you want to add that to your yoghurt – go for it,” Chan says. “If you want to add za’atar or dukkah and some olive oil, go for it. All those sorts of flavours work, and I often have lots of herbs and spices in my pantry which I make use of.”

Watch: A Recipe For Easy Lamb Shawarma Wraps With Masterchef's Diana Chan
Chef and TV personality Diana Chan shows us how to make an easy midweek meal: lamb shawarma wraps with feta and garlic yoghurt – that’s on the table in 45 minutes.

Lamb shawarma wraps with feta and garlic yoghurt
Serves 4
Prep time: 13 mins
Cooking time: 32 mins

Ingredients

4 x 200g lamb rump roasts
2 tbsp Smoky Coriander and Cumin Blend
40ml olive oil
700g sweet potatoes
2 truss tomatoes
2 cucumbers
1 bunch parsley
1 garlic clove
240g Greek-style yoghurt
4 souvlaki breads
100g feta

Method

Preheat oven to 220°C fan-forced. Place lamb on two lined baking trays, sprinkle with Smoky Coriander and Cumin Blend, salt and pepper and drizzle with 20ml of olive oil. Massage lamb to evenly coat in spices.

Cut sweet potatoes into wedges and divide evenly between trays with lamb. Drizzle sweet potato with remaining olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 18–20 minutes or until lamb is cooked to medium. Remove lamb from tray and set aside to rest. Continue cooking sweet potato for a further 10–12 minutes or until golden and tender. While lamb and sweet potato is cooking, prepare the salad.

Roughly chop tomatoes and cucumbers. Pluck parsley leaves from their stems and roughly chop. Place tomato, cucumber and parsley in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Mix to combine and set aside.

Peel and crush garlic. Place garlic, yoghurt, salt and pepper in a small bowl and stir until smooth.

Wrap souvlaki breads in aluminium foil. In the last 5 minutes of cooking the sweet potato, place breads in oven to warm through.

Thinly slice lamb. Crumble feta. Divide lamb, salad and feta between breads and drizzle with garlic yoghurt. Serve with sweet potato wedges.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with QuiteLike.