Turkish Lamb Kebab, with light lentil rice, and Broadleaf Parsley Salad
This is a wonderfully refreshing dish, based upon good quality, fresh ingredients. It is a very light, summery dish and it is quite quick to prepare.
Ingredients:
The Kebab
- Cubes of the freshest juiciest lamb you can find. (about 6-8 cubes per person ~ note that they shrink as the yummy juices drip out during cooking)
- Red and Yellow Peppers
- Corguette
The Rice
- Basmati Rice
- Flat lentils, small light ones
- Sunflower Oil
The Salad
- Tomatoes, plenty
- Cucumber
- Some of the peppers from above
- Some of the red onion from below
- Block of Feta Cheese
- Black Olives (spend some on the good ones)
-
BIG bunch of broadleaf parsley (must get this right as it characterises the whole meal. It
looks like corriander, same size, same colour but quite a different smell. Make sure it is PARSLEY and that it is BROADLEAF parsley.)
For it all
- Red & White onions
- Plenty of Garlic
- Some lemons for their juice
- Garlic Salt & Pepper
- Dried oregano
- Plenty more cloves of garlic
- Extra Virgin Olive oil
- Good quality Balsamic Vinegar
- Salted Capers
The Method
-
Kebabs first: Pour olive oil and place chopped garlic with your lamb cubes. Put the cube mix into a clean carrier bag and beat the hell out of them with a rolling pin to tenderise them and get the flavours in. Put all the cubes in a bowl and pour over somemore olive oil, squeeze a good few lemons worth of juice, chop big chunks of garlic, add a little salt and then rub it all thoroughly with your bare, clean hands. Leave it all to get yummy and deal with >
-
The Rice: Pre soak a quarter cup of the small flat lentils for a few hours. You don't want too many lentils, they are just to lend the rice texture. Wash the appropriate amount of rice, a medium size cup full to the brim per 2 persons is good. You don't want too much rice here - it is meant to be a light, summery dish.
Pour some Sunflower Oil into a pot and heat it up slowly until it bubbles. Then add some chopped white onions and one clove of garlic (not too much ok). Simmer the onions down a bit then add the RAW RICE into the onion/oil/garlic juice WITHOUT water. Mix the raw rice around quickly so that it gets coated with the oil/juice. Then add boiling water to cover the rice. Then add the pre-soaked lentils and simmer it down VERY SLOWLY. While that is cooking away >
- Put the Kebabs on: Get your skewers and alternate like this > corguette slice > big chunk of red onion > clove of garlic WITH SKIN on > cube of lamb > chunk of yellow pepper. Keep going like that and fill as many sticks up as you need to. Sprinkle them with some love and whack them under a grill or better still onto a flaming barbecue. Then start >
- The Salad: Turkish salads are uniquely refreshing. This is down to the FRESHNESS of the ingredients and also how FINELY CHOPPED they are. So:
Chop cubes of tomato, yellow pepper, feta cheese & cucumber so they are about 1cm cubed. Chop the red onions very finely and put it all in a big bowl.
[Check on the rice, give it a stir and turn the kebabs now.] Now throw in your black olives and feel free to dribble as much of their marinade onto the emerging salad mix as you can. Now get your big bunch of broadleaf parsley and chop it really fine also.
Then drizzle the whole thing with lemon juice and stir it while you deal with >
- The Salad Dressing: Pour a few tablespoons of Olive oil into a cup.
[stir the rice & turn the kebabs] Add about 1/3 - 2/3s of that amount of Balsamic Vinegar, depending on taste. It's better to go heavy with the BV in this case. Add 'garlic salt' and pepper to taste. That's it! Put it on the salad now and mix it all up.
Your rice and kebabs should be cooked by now too
.
Serving
Drain your rice of any excess water (if you cooked it slowly there shouldn't be too much). Get a small bowl and gently push the rice into it, filling it to the brim. Create a flat surface across the mouth of the bowl and turn it upside down onto the plate. You should have a nice DOME OF RICE. Stick a little leaf of the parsley ontop of that for colour.
Strip the skewers of the kebabs and serve these in a neat
crescent around the
dome of rice. Have a freshly sliced quarter of lemon beside it.
Place a portion of salad to connect the two ends of the 'kebab crescent' or in a separate bowl and serve it up in your kaftan and fez.
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I recommend drinking a Shiraz with this meal
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If you do this right you will most probably get laid.