Our friend Miriam García, from El Invitado de Invierno , has used the Kitchen Craft meat mincer to surprise us with some golden grilled kebabs. A curious, easy and really tasty recipe.
Kebab, kabab, kebap, kephav… all these are the names given in different countries of the Mediterranean Levant and the Middle East to food, usually threaded onto a skewer or skewer, which is cooked in pieces over embers.
When it comes to meat kebabs, I particularly like those prepared with minced meat, in the shape of a more or less elongated meatball, like a sausage without skin. And those are the ones I bring you, minced meat and onion kebabs in the Persian (or Iranian) style, well spiced and browned on the grill, in my case, which is more convenient than lighting a barbecue and you can do it at any time of the year.
In the Middle East, it is very common to prepare skewers of this type with lamb meat, which are delicious. In our country, minced lamb meat is not usually found, but we can mince it ourselves if we have a mincer as cool as mine. The recipe is adapted from this one from Saveur magazine; the grated onion gives it a special flavour and a lot of juiciness, and the final touch of saffron butter seems delicious and essential to me; don't forget to add it.
Ingredients
500 g of beef or lamb,
1 medium scallion or onion,
1 crushed garlic clove,
1 egg yolk,
½ tsp. turmeric,
½ tsp. hot paprika,
2 tsp. salt,
breadcrumbs,
a few strands of saffron,
1 tbsp. butter.
Elaboration
We start by mincing the meat, if we don't have it already minced. If we don't have a manual mincer, we can always mince it with a knife, but it's laborious.
We grate the onion or chop it very finely; it will release liquid so it is best to put it in a strainer and let it rest for at least an hour.
We press the onion between two kitchen papers to remove any liquid and mix it with the minced meat in a bowl.
We add all the spices and condiments, except the saffron, butter and breadcrumbs, as well as the egg yolk. We mix well until homogenous.
Next, add some breadcrumbs, just enough to prevent the mixture from oozing too much liquid; when you stir the mixture, it should barely stain the bowl with liquid. I don't give the amount of breadcrumbs because it depends on the meat and how moist the onion was; you have to taste until the mixture is firm enough.
We take apricot-sized balls and shape them into elongated meatballs, which we will then place on metal skewers. Once on the skewers, we can carefully roll the meatballs on a board to make them thinner, while pressing the meat onto the skewer.
Once all the skewers are assembled, we prepare the saffron butter: lightly toast the saffron (I put it on a piece of aluminium foil and place a match underneath it), crush it well in a mortar and add the teaspoon of hot water and then the tablespoon of melted butter. Mix and set aside.
Just before cooking, we brush the kebabs with saffron butter. We can cook them either on a grill, which should not have any high edges to make it easier, or on the barbecue if we have the opportunity, or on the grill on a high shelf of the oven. To do it this way, we will turn on the grill to the maximum, let it heat up to full and place the skewers on a tray on the highest shelf of the oven. We will cook the kebabs on both sides until they are golden. The cooking must be done with very high heat and quickly so that the meat is well sealed on the outside and the juices do not escape.
When you take the skewers out, brush them lightly with saffron butter again. Serve immediately with a salad or Middle Eastern style rice.
