Lamb Kebabs
We had to include this recipe because, sooner or later, you’re going to end up with a few metal kebab skewers kicking around at the back of your kitchen drawer and you’re gonna wanna know what to do with them.
Well, here we go ...
Well, here we go ...
But first, it’s much more interesting to know about all the (seriously not recommended) things that kebab skewers get used for and which have nothing to do with cooking. With my very own set these include:
- Lancing a huge septic neck boil - it wasn’t my idea or my boil - a long time ago a flatmate “borrowed” my kebab skewer and did the dirty job all by himself in the privacy of the bathroom. Then he boasted about what he’d done. Idiot.
- Poking & disturbing the congealed fat which had coagulated in the kitchen sink’s U-bend and had stopped the water flowing away. (Well, we all do that, don’t we?)
- D.I.Y. ingrown toenail surgery - just don’t ask.
If there is any niggling doubt at the back of your mind about the adventures that your kebab skewers may have been having when your back was turned ... wash ‘em, and scrub ‘em, and boil them for 10 minutes in water. Basically, kebab skewers are gagging for action and you have no way of knowing what they’ve been up to in the six months since you last used them. Your kebab skewers are a tease. Literally: they are “pricky little teasers” and they should be locked up at night to save everyone a whole heap of grief.
Meanwhile, these lamb kebabs are good.
Meanwhile, these lamb kebabs are good.
INGREDIENTS
- Lamb. Get neck fillet from the supermarket because it’s quite cheap and it doesn’t need much chopping.
- Onion
- Olive oil
- Rosemary (the dried stuff in packets is fine).
- Mushrooms (fresh button mushrooms thread onto the kebab skewer better)
- Bell pepper - any colour. One is probably enough for four people.
METHOD
Remove the dry, outside skin and very finely chop up the onion. This’ll take ages and, if you’ve got a food processor, use that coz it’ll be much quicker. The onions have gotta be very finely chopped.
Chop the lamb neck fillet into the sort of sized pieces that you could imagine putting into your mouth. Very roughly, about 2 centimetres cubed.
Get a bowl and put in: the chopped onion, the chopped meat, lots of rosemary (at least a heapped a dessert spoon full), and then, while mixing with your fingers, add just enough olive oil to make it all sticky and slodgy.
Cover the bowl. Put the bowl in the fridge and go away for 12 hours (or overnight, whatever). Whenever you get a curious urge - which’ll happen at least 3 times - uncover the bowl and stir it all around a bit with your fingers.
Several things are going on ... the juices from the finely chopped onion are tenderising the lamb; the rosemary and olive oil are flavouring the lamb; and your curious finger-stirrings are infusing your digits with the smell of rosemary - which is making your mouth water. Be sure to wash yer handies both before and after stirring the meat; but don’t worry coz the smell’ll linger on your finger.
Ages later, you’ll be ready to cook it.
First, turn the grill on full blast and leave it to get red hot.
Meanwhile, chop the peppers into chunky bits. Chuck out the pepper seeds. You don’t eat those seeds.
Now, thread onto your scrupulously clean kebab skewers: A lump of pepper. A chunk of meat. A mushroom. Carry on until you’ve used up all your meat, mushrooms and pepper chunks. Alternate, but there’s no need to be strictly repetitive - just use your grand creativity to thread the Meat + chopped Peppers + Mushrooms onto the dangerous and pointy-ended kebab skewers. Squeeze the food onto the shaft. Don’t skewer yourself!
If you want to thin things out a bit, you could also thread on chunks of onion. Onion is possible - but sometimes the onion will split, and fall asunder off the skewer, and make you curse.
Quite soon you will either be howling around the house, looking for Elastoplast, or, you’ll have some impressively loaded kebab skewers, full of healthy veggies and tasty rosemary flavoured lamb.
Now, lay the skewers onto a grill rack that is in a grill pan and put the pan under the preheated grill. The closest bit of meat should be about 5cms away from the source of the heat and it’ll take about 20 minutes to cook. As the meat cooks on one side, you’ll have to turn it over - probably turning about every 5 minutes throughout the cooking. As you turn, splodge on some of the unused olive oil and oniony bits that the meat was marinating in - this will stop the meat from burning and, anyway, there’s nothing else you can do with it.
If you’re an experto, you could even BBQ these kebabs or cook them on a disposable BBQ foil tray thingie.
Make sure that the lamb meat is thoroughly cooked before you eat it. If necessary, make an exploratory incision into one of the bits of meat before you serve it up. There shouldn’t be any raw bloody red meat in the middle. It should all look a light grey.
For serving, it’s probably easier to remove the meat and veg from the skewer. Wheedle the stuff off with the prongs of a fork but be careful that it doesn’t unexpectedly come shooting off at high velocity and end up yards away in the cat litter tray. That’s your problem and decision.
Plain boiled rice is good to eat with this dish and it can be cooking while the kebabs are doing.
Plain boiled rice is good to eat with this dish and it can be cooking while the kebabs are doing.