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Kabab Koobideh

The mince is kneaded semi-frozen so the fat stays in separate particles and bursts as pockets of juice.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

Method

  1. THE MINCE IS KNEADED SEMI-FROZEN SO THE FAT STAYS IN SEPARATE PARTICLES AND BURSTS AS POCKETS OF JUICE. Its own article sets out two styles with the same ingredients and different handling, and this is the juicier one. Chill the mince until it is firm at the edges and barely yielding in the middle, then knead it cold -- ten minutes, hard, until it is cohesive and will hang together off a spoon. Because the fat never softens it stays as discrete specks through the meat, and on the grill each speck renders where it sits and leaves a pocket of juice. The alternative, kneading warm at up to fifty degrees, melts the fat into the muscle and gives a softer kebab that melts in the mouth but is drier; its article notes that style is less common now because of the contamination risk from working meat warm.
  2. THE FAT IS THE RECIPE AND IT COMES FROM THE FLANK, NOT THE TAIL. Twenty to thirty-five per cent, which its article says professionals push to forty. Flank or rib fat for its mild taste; tail fat, which goes into similar kebabs elsewhere, is too strong for this one. Lean mince gives a grey kebab that tastes of nothing and falls off the skewer.
  3. THE ONION IS GRATED, SALTED, RESTED AND THEN SQUEEZED HARD. Two hundred grams per kilo of meat, which is fifteen to eighteen per cent of the mixture. Grate it fine, salt it with a teaspoon and leave it for a couple of hours, then wring it out in a cloth -- its article puts the water removed at up to sixty-five per cent of the onion's weight. The resting takes the raw pungency out; the squeezing is what stops the kebab sliding off the skewer.
  4. THE MEAT IS GROUND TWICE ON A MEDIUM PLATE. Once gives you a texture too coarse to bind. A fine plate turns it to paste.
  5. FOUR INGREDIENTS, AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS A DEVIATION. Meat, onion, salt, black pepper. Its article is emphatic: beef, veal, older or female mutton, chicken, egg, bicarbonate, breadcrumbs, flour and other spices are all departures from the four-ingredient version, used to make the mixture easier to handle or to cover poor meat. Egg in particular is a common fix and it makes a different, bouncier thing.
  6. IT GOES ON A WIDE FLAT SKEWER AND IS MARKED WITH INDENTATIONS. Skewers two to four centimetres wide, eighty to four hundred grams of meat on each. Press the meat around the skewer with a wet hand, then run your fingers across it at intervals to make the ridged indentations -- gol -- so that bare metal shows between them. That exposed skewer conducts heat into the middle of the meat and is why the kebab cooks through evenly rather than charring outside and staying raw at the core.
  7. HIGHER HEAT THAN ANY OTHER IRANIAN KEBAB, AND TURNED CONSTANTLY. Its article says both. A fierce bed of charcoal and the skewers turned every twenty or thirty seconds from the moment they go on. Early turning stops the meat shrinking away and dropping off; left still, it detaches and falls into the fire.
  8. IT IS SERVED WITH SUMAC, BUTTER AND SOMETHING SOUR. Its article names grilled tomatoes, flatbread or steamed rice, raw onion, fresh herbs with basil especially, sumac, butter, and lime or bitter orange. The fat content is high and every one of those is there to cut it.
  9. IT IS JUDGED BY WHETHER IT STAYS ON THE SKEWER, NOT BY A PROBE. There is no useful internal temperature for a kebab two centimetres thick over fierce charcoal -- it goes from raw to overdone in about ninety seconds. The test is mechanical: when the surface has set firm enough that the meat no longer sags between the indentations, and the fat has stopped dripping hard, it is done. Press it and it should spring rather than dent.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Iran · All recipes