Kavurma

Cooked in its own fat and then sealed under a layer of it, which is a confit rather than a cure.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

• 2 kg lamb shoulder, in 3 cm cubes
• 700 g lamb tail fat, diced
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 bay leaves

Method

1. IT IS COOKED IN ITS OWN FAT AND THEN SEALED UNDER A LAYER OF IT, which is a confit rather than a cure. Nothing here is salted hard, pressed, hung or dried -- the two pages before this one do all of that. The tail fat is rendered down first, the lamb is cooked slowly in it for two hours until it is completely tender, and then the meat is packed into jars and covered with the strained hot fat so no air reaches it. That seal is the preservation: kept cool and unbroken it holds for months, and the moment the fat layer is cut into, the clock starts and what is left needs eating within a week or so.
2. THE FAT MUST COVER THE MEAT COMPLETELY AND BY A GOOD CENTIMETRE. Any corner standing above the fat line will spoil and will take the jar with it. The jars are filled, topped up, and then checked again once cool -- the fat settles and sinks as it sets and a piece can surface.
3. THERE IS ALMOST AS MUCH FAT AS MEAT AND CUTTING IT DEFEATS THE DISH. Seven hundred grams of tail fat to two kilos of lamb. Most of it is strained off and reused rather than eaten, but there has to be enough to submerge the meat while it cooks and again in the jar. With a few spoonfuls the lamb braises in its own juices, which is pleasant and keeps four days.
4. IT IS SALTED MODERATELY BECAUSE IT IS NOT A CURE. Two tablespoons for two kilos -- ordinary seasoning. Pastırma uses three hundred grams for one and a half kilos because the salt is doing the preserving there. Here the fat does it, and a heavily salted kavurma is simply too salty to eat, with nothing to be done about it.
5. IT IS COOKED AT A BARE BUBBLE AND NEVER BROWNED HARD. The fat should move lazily, not sizzle. Hot enough to fry and the outside of each cube seals and toughens; at a bare bubble the lamb goes meltingly soft over two hours. A little colour at the end is fine, and chasing a brown crust is the wrong dish.
6. The tail fat diced and put in a heavy pot over a LOW heat with 100 ml of water.
7. Rendered 40 MINUTES until the fat has run clear and the solids are crisp. The solids lifted out and kept.
8. The lamb cubes added to the hot fat with the salt, pepper and bay. The fat should nearly cover them.
9. Cooked at a BARE BUBBLE 2 HOURS. Not fried, not browned.
10. TESTED: a cube should crush against the side of the pot.
11. The bay removed. The meat lifted out with a slotted spoon into warm sterilised jars, packed down.
12. The fat STRAINED and poured over the meat to cover it by a good 1 cm.
13. Left to cool, then CHECKED AGAIN: the fat sinks as it sets and any piece that has surfaced must be pushed under and topped up.
14. Sealed and kept somewhere cool. Keeps 3 months unopened.
15. TO USE: a piece lifted out, the fat scraped off, and fried briefly with onion and eggs, or warmed through into a pilaf.
16. An opened jar keeps about a week; the surface must be re-covered with fat each time.

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