Alinazik Kebab

The smoked aubergine and yoghurt bed is the dish, and the meat is what goes on top of it.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

the bed

• 4 large aubergines
• 300 g thick yoghurt
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste with salt
• 1 teaspoon salt

the meat

• 500 g lamb shoulder, hand-chopped
• 100 g lamb tail fat, hand-chopped
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

to finish

• 40 g butter
• 1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
• a handful of parsley

Method

1. THE SMOKED AUBERGINE AND YOGHURT BED IS THE DISH, and the meat is what goes on top of it. That is the opposite of every other kebab on this site, where the meat is the subject and anything underneath is a vehicle. Here the aubergines are charred black over a flame until they collapse, scraped out, chopped on a board, and beaten with thick yoghurt and raw garlic into a warm pale purée that tastes strongly of smoke. That purée is what the dish is named for and judged on. The lamb is a handful of good hand-chopped kebab meat, cooked plainly, piled in the middle -- and if the bed is bland the dish is bland whatever the meat does.
2. THE AUBERGINES ARE CHARRED OVER A FLAME UNTIL THEY COLLAPSE, not roasted in an oven. Directly on a gas ring or over coals, turned until the skin is black all over and splitting and the whole thing has slumped -- twenty minutes or more. The flesh must be smoked, not merely cooked. An oven at 220°C gives soft aubergine with no smoke in it at all, and no amount of garlic hides the absence.
3. THEY ARE DRAINED BEFORE THEY MEET THE YOGHURT. Scraped out and left in a sieve ten or fifteen minutes, because a charred aubergine holds a surprising amount of bitter liquid. Beaten straight in, it thins the yoghurt to a soup and the purée will not hold a hollow for the meat.
4. THE FLESH IS CHOPPED ON A BOARD AND NOT BLENDED. A knife, until it is a rough purée with strands still visible. A food processor whips air through it and turns it pale, gluey and oddly sweet, and the texture that makes it a bed rather than a dip is gone.
5. THE YOGHURT IS AT ROOM TEMPERATURE AND THE BED IS SERVED WARM. Fridge-cold yoghurt against warm aubergine splits, and a cold bed under hot meat is unpleasant. The yoghurt comes out an hour ahead, and the finished purée is warmed gently -- never simmered, which would split it.
6. The aubergines charred WHOLE over a gas flame or coals, turned often, 20 MINUTES or more, until the skin is BLACK all over and the flesh has collapsed.
7. Left to cool a little, then split and the flesh scraped out. The skin discarded.
8. The flesh DRAINED in a sieve 15 MINUTES and the bitter liquid thrown away.
9. CHOPPED on a board with a knife to a rough purée. Not blended.
10. The garlic crushed to a paste with a little salt, and beaten with the room-temperature yoghurt.
11. The chopped aubergine folded in and the bed warmed gently in a pan -- WARM, never simmering.
12. The lamb and tail fat chopped by hand and mixed with the salt, pepper and pepper flakes.
13. Cooked in a dry hot pan 6 to 8 MINUTES, broken up, until browned and the fat has run.
14. The warm aubergine bed spread on a warm platter and a hollow pressed in the middle.
15. The hot lamb piled into the hollow with its pan fat.
16. The butter melted with the pepper flakes until foaming and poured over the meat. Parsley scattered on and served at once.

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 Turkey · All recipes