Burdur Şiş

Marinated in plain milk rather than anything acid, which tenderises without firming the surface.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

• 900 g lamb shoulder, in 3 cm cubes
• 150 g lamb tail fat, in 2 cm cubes
• 500 ml whole milk
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• flat skewers

Method

1. IT IS MARINATED IN PLAIN MILK RATHER THAN ANYTHING ACID, and that is the whole difference from the other skewers here. Milk is barely acidic at all -- a pH of about six and a half -- so it tenderises by a quite different route from lemon, vinegar or yoghurt: the calcium in it activates enzymes already present in the meat, and the meat's surface is never firmed or denatured. A lamb cube out of a milk marinade is pale, soft and completely unchanged to look at, where a yoghurt-marinated cube has an opaque skin and a lemon-marinated one is visibly whitened at the edges. On the fire that matters: the surface browns cleanly instead of steaming off a pre-cooked layer.
2. IT WANTS LONGER THAN AN ACID MARINADE AND CANNOT OVERDO IT. Overnight, twelve to twenty-four hours. Because nothing is being chemically cooked there is no point at which the meat goes mushy -- the fault that spoils an overnight lemon marinade. This is a marinade that rewards being forgotten about.
3. THE MILK IS WIPED OFF AND THE CUBES PATTED DRY. Milk left on the surface contains lactose and protein, both of which scorch fast and taste bitter, and it also steams rather than sears. Lifted out, wiped, and patted properly dry before the salt goes on.
4. TAIL FAT IS THREADED BETWEEN THE CUBES. Shoulder has some marbling but a milk marinade adds no fat of its own the way a yoghurt one does, so a cube of tail fat every second or third piece does the basting.
5. IT IS SALTED AFTER THE MARINADE, NOT IN IT. Salt in milk overnight draws moisture out of the meat and into the liquid, which is the opposite of what twelve hours in milk is for. Salted once wiped and dried, twenty minutes before it goes on.
6. The lamb cut into even 3 cm cubes and the tail fat into 2 cm cubes.
7. The cubes covered COMPLETELY with the milk, with the sliced onion and the pepper. NO SALT.
8. Covered and left OVERNIGHT, 12 to 24 HOURS, in the fridge.
9. Lifted out, the onion discarded, and each cube WIPED and PATTED DRY.
10. Salted and left 20 MINUTES at room temperature.
11. Threaded onto FLAT skewers with a cube of TAIL FAT every second or third piece, and a small gap between.
12. The charcoal burned down to grey-white embers with no flame.
13. Cooked 10 to 12 MINUTES, TURNED every 2 to 3 minutes.
14. Moved aside when the fat flares.
15. TESTED: a cube cut open should be just pink at the centre, and noticeably paler and softer than a yoghurt-marinated one.
16. RESTED 5 minutes and served on flatbread with raw onion.

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