Kuzu Şiş

Cubes cut to one size with the fat left on, marinated in onion juice rather than anything acid.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

• 900 g lamb leg, in 3 cm cubes with the fat left on
• 1 large onion, grated and squeezed for its juice
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• flat skewers

Method

1. THE CUBES ARE CUT TO ONE SIZE AND THE FAT IS LEFT ON. Three centimetres, all of them, which takes longer than eyeballing it and is the whole difference between a skewer that cooks evenly and one where the small pieces are dry before the big ones are done. And the fat is not trimmed: lamb leg carries seams of it, and over charcoal that fat renders and bastes everything below it. Trimmed lean, the same marinade and the same fire give something noticeably drier, and there is nothing to be done about it at the grill.
2. THE MARINADE IS ONION JUICE AND NOT LEMON OR YOGHURT. The onion is grated and SQUEEZED, and only the juice is used -- the pulp burns on the skewer and tastes acrid. Onion juice tenderises without the sourness that lemon leaves and without the chalky coating that a yoghurt marinade sets into over charcoal. This is the plain kebab the others on this site depart from, and a sharp marinade would be hiding the lamb rather than seasoning it.
3. THE SKEWERS ARE FLAT AND NOT ROUND. A round skewer lets every cube spin back to the same face when it is turned, so one side chars and the other stays pale. A flat blade grips the meat and the whole skewer turns together. This is the single most useful piece of equipment in this chapter of the site and it costs very little.
4. THE CUBES GO ON WITH A GAP AND NOT PRESSED TOGETHER. A few millimetres between each. Packed tight, the touching faces steam rather than brown and the centre of the skewer is still raw when the ends are done.
5. THE FIRE IS EMBERS AND THE MEAT IS SALTED LATE. Grey-white coals, no flame. And the salt goes on about twenty minutes before cooking rather than into the marinade hours earlier: salt in an onion-juice marinade overnight draws the meat's own moisture out into the bowl.
6. The lamb cut into even 3 cm cubes, the fat seams LEFT ON. Any sinew removed.
7. The onion grated and SQUEEZED in a cloth. Only the JUICE kept; the pulp discarded.
8. The cubes mixed with the onion juice, olive oil, oregano and pepper. NOT salted yet.
9. Covered and left 4 HOURS in the fridge, or overnight.
10. The charcoal lit and left to BURN DOWN to grey-white embers with no flame.
11. The meat salted and left 20 MINUTES at room temperature.
12. Threaded onto FLAT skewers with a few millimetres GAP between the cubes.
13. Laid over the embers and cooked 10 to 12 MINUTES in all, TURNED every 2 to 3 minutes.
14. Moved aside whenever dripping fat makes the coals flare.
15. TESTED: a cube cut open should be just pink at the centre. Lamb leg taken past that goes dry.
16. RESTED 5 minutes on a warm plate, loosely covered.
17. Served on flatbread with raw onion, sumac and parsley.

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