Of course, a rare good picnic does without a delicious barbecue, but they will not surprise anyone, so its closest alternative - kebab on the grill - is gaining more and more popularity. Moreover, he is the very dish that can be considered the pinnacle of cookery in a picnic or courtyard of a country house where you can use the barbecue.
And all because it’s not barbecue, kebabs often fall off skewers or experience the patience of the cook in some other way, forcing them to switch to using the grill, but this is not at all the same. This article will tell you that it is quite affordable to cook kebab at home on the grill. And they can not only surprise guests, but also regularly diversify picnics in the fresh air.
A bit of history. About varieties and distribution of kebab
It is believed that the first kebab was prepared in the second century BC, and this dish is associated with a sacrificial lamb. A beautiful Turkish legend says that Alexander the Great himself invented one of the most common kebab recipes - iskender-kebab (this is thinly sliced lamb on a tortilla, sprinkled with lentils and sprinkled with yogurt).
In general, there are a lot of varieties of kebab, for example, shish-kebab is an ordinary kebab, but the kebab is exactly sausages that are made manually from minced meat. There is also a less well-known teka-kebab, which is prepared with potatoes and Azerbaijani lavash. Kebab is also very widespread among Arabs and Turks, but its official history originates in Baghdad, in the tenth century AD.
The origin of the term and features of the preparation
The very word “kebab” from the Persian language can literally be translated as “fried meat”, so, in fact, kebab is both dener, and shawarma, and barbecue. Previously, kebabs were cooked completely without vegetables, chopped meat was simply fried on an iron pan (kebab on the grill, as we know it now, appeared relatively recently).
In Asia Minor, where this dish was very quickly and highly appreciated, a host of its varieties appeared, the names of which were given right there, in local languages. For example, one of the most common varieties is Turkish dener kebab or just dener, as it is called much more often. This dish is also called shawarma. This word, in turn, means nothing more than “wrapping”. Thus, the name of the dish itself contains a method for its preparation.
Minced meat
Ask any experienced chef how to cook kebab on the grill, and he will certainly begin to say that the most important thing is quality meat. And here the most interesting point is that kebab does not have to be made from lamb. Some skilled cooks manage to cook it even from chicken! But in general, as in the case of barbecue, after lamb the most popular is, perhaps, pork kebab on the grill. One way or another, the meat should be fresh, which has not been frozen. From it you need to cook minced meat.
Of course, you can use a conventional meat grinder with large holes in the grill, but the meat in this case will lose a lot of juice, and this can interfere with kneading and knocking out the stuffing. So it’s better to just chop the meat. First along the fibers, then across, using a pair of hatchets or special knives, of course, having previously cleaned the meat of the films and excess fat. You need to chop carefully, several times collecting chopped pieces into a pile and repeating the procedure again and again until the stuffing is small enough.
The Importance of Fat
Minced kebab from minced meat on the grill only then it turns out really tasty if a sufficient amount of bacon was used during the preparation of minced meat. Usually it needs at least a quarter of the weight of the meat used or even more, this is for your taste.
Due to the required amount of fat, the forcemeat becomes viscous enough so that the resulting sausages will not slip off the skewers during the entire cooking process. It can be chopped in exactly the same way as meat, but it should look like pasta, so a blender or combine will be very useful. Lard can be both pork, so-called interior, and fat tail of sheep.
Some connoisseurs argue that it is the latter option that is most preferable, as it gives the finished dish a special aroma and taste.
The great importance of onions
In order for the kebab on the grill to turn out juicy and tasty, no doubt you need onions, but it’s very important not to overdo it, otherwise the onion juice can make the minced meat too thin, so you can’t make anything out of it, the sausages will be break up. Keep proportions in the region of one third of the total meat. Here, unlike fat, neither the combine nor the blender will definitely fit, because the stuffing will turn out to be excessively watery. It is better to chop or chop the onions into small cubes. Although some chefs believe that you can not add it to the minced meat for kebab. Alas, as practice shows, in such situations, the finished dish will not only be rather dry, but also quite solid.
Use of spices and herbs
It is worth noting that with all the desire or even the temptation to add some special spices to the mincemeat, this is not worth it. The truth is that homemade kebab on the grill is a self-sufficient dish, and various spices can simply “clog”, spoil the taste of meat or change it beyond recognition.
Of course, this is a matter of taste, but what is really important is fresh greens, here you do not have to skimp, because it goes well with meat and complements, emphasizes its taste.
Stuffing Stuffing
As you know, it’s not the additives that give the forcemeat viscosity, such as eggs, white bread or semolina, because we are not talking about cutlets, so the main emphasis is on beating and very intensive cooling. The more carefully you manage to knead the minced meat, the better. All ingredients should ultimately form a homogeneous mass.
To seal the stuffing, it is usually lifted and thrown into the cooking container with force. Sometimes for these purposes special packages are used in which the stuffing is wrapped. There is only one sense in these actions - to “knock out” excess moisture from minced meat. By the way, the package is used just so that there is less spray. The knockout process itself should take you at least ten minutes. Yes, grill kebab is a dish that requires a thorough approach. Not only should the meat be knocked out, then it must also be thoroughly cooled in the refrigerator. A bowl with a linen napkin at the bottom is perfect for this.
Cooking sausages
Sausages are usually made thin, not more than three or four centimeters in diameter, and then pierced with skewer. Or, as an option, just stick the skewer with minced meat. At the same time, remember that in order to prevent it from sticking to your hands, it would be nice to periodically moisten them in heated salted water. You need to hug carefully so that the sausage is tight and holds tight. The kebab is fried quickly, very often turning the skewer so that the frying is uniform. Of course, the coals must be hot enough to form a tight crust, while at the same time, the juicy flesh must be preserved inside. This is worth remembering if you are interested in the grill kebab recipe at home.
The choice of skewers and features of serving dishes
It is better to immediately exclude flat skewers; kebabs slide off from them most easily. Long wooden skewers are ideal. This is convenient primarily because kebabs can be served right in the table. The main thing is not to forget to pre-soak the skewers in water so that they are saturated and not carbonized during cooking. Kebab is fried until a delicious crust is formed and served right there, right from the coals, still hot, always adding vegetables and greens.
And sometimes they wrap it in thin pita bread and use some suitable sauce in addition to greens and vegetables. The most important thing is that the kebab does not have time to cool.
Classic recipe and variety
Well, now let me introduce you the recipe for kebab at home on the grill. The method of preparation is described in detail in the article, but the composition of the ingredients and their proportions will be as follows. You will need:
- four medium sized onions;
- kilogram of lamb pulp;
- three hundred grams of fat tail fat;
- ground black pepper, dried basil, salt.
Now you know how to cook kebab on the grill so that it turns out for you no worse than with professional chefs. Of course, success does not come from the first attempt, but this is not some kind of scramble, but a real figure of culinary aerobatics.