How to Make Urfa-Style Kebab

I rarely stress the fact I do not eat meat because I find that vegetarianism is a corrupted concept even among vegetarians themselves. My choice of not eating meat is not ideological: I may pity the slaughtered animals but I understand there is a natural order of things, and it’s logical that man domesticated some animals to secure the supply of extremely nutritious food. I have never preached to anybody about following my lead because doing so often comes from your own insecurity about your choice, and I feel strong about mine.

I first experienced meatless diet during the year I spent in India when chicken and mutton were available and enjoyed, but mostly people ate meatless meals with plenty of pulses. Even though my switch to no-meat diet did not take place right then it was in India where I had learned to cook and enjoy flavorful full-fledged meals without meat, which eventually led to the ultimate exclusion of meat from my diet. For half a year I was trying to be a complete vegetarian: I was also not eating fish. But fish got back into my diet (I grew up on a river and enjoy eating fish so much!) and meat never did.

I am not by any mean purist about it. There is just something about the meat’s texture that I don’t enjoy so much and eating it leaves me feeling very heavy. But I don’t mind the flavor and presence of meat in a dish: I will happily eat chicken-stock based soup or deep my bread into the juices of the lamb baked in salt.

But still for a long time I did not cook meat. Which is kind of ridiculous in Turkey: even if an average Turkish family eats less meat than you’d think fare for the kebab motherland no one has cancelled the love for kebabs. I tried to skip the duty in the beginning and mostly cooked vegetarian or fish for my family and they were quite nice about accepting that. But then I started hearing from my husband after the meals I cook, “Dear, it’s 5 star but would have been 6 star if you had cooked it with meat”. So I started feeling guilty abut imposing my way of eating on my Turkish family. I would be cooking something and my mother-in-law would tell me, “Why don’t you use minced meat?” And I would so I’d spend 2-3 hours on making lasagna from the stretch to the delight of everybody in the family but I would not take a single bite in the end.

Minced meat by the way is the easiest to cook with with if you don’t eat meat yourself. It mingles with the rest of the ingredients and it’s hard to go wrong with the texture as long as you use high-quality fresh meat. Also, minced meat is a transformation that feels less meat than a piece of flash so my interaction with meat was still minimal during the cooking and I still would not even taste it.

Others were not so convinced it could go on like that. My younger cousin going to culinary school would announce, ‘A cook has to taste everything’ and take a sample of raw meat marinade. My mother-in-law would pull my leg about refusing to taste her lamb tandır, ‘How are you going to cook it without tasting?’

How was I going to cook it indeed? I thought as I had been cooking meat for a decade before it was not difficult to start again: I’d just need to develop a recipe for each dish in my Turkish meat repertoire and then follow it. I started with köfte, Turkish meatballs. Is there an easier thing to cook on Earth? Minced meat, breadcrumbs, egg, grated onion, garlic, spices and a bit of salt. I made a batch and fried a little piece to check the seasoning. I licked a bite but it gave me no hint. I could not bring myself to chewing it. So I fed it to three people to get three different responses: 1) ok, 2) unsalted, 3) too much cumin. This definitive feedback made me realize that if I want this köfte to be my own I can rely only on my own palate.

And then taste is just one dimension in the meat eating experience - texture is another. “Lokum gibi” you’d hear about a soft piece which may look just like a chewy and harder one but will never feel the same. And to understand the texture you need to chew a bite that I could not bring myself to doing for a long time. Until one fine day I did. So I started trying meat at any worthwhile occasion snatching a bit from my husband’s plate and volunteering to cook meat more frequently than usual: my meat memory got back to me very quickly. And if you have ever fasted or skipped particular food for a while you may know how fresh and acute your sensation of that food becomes when you eat it again. Because my meat consumption will be just a few bites a week - mostly from tasting while cooking - I am easily one of the most demanding meat appreciators out there.

So I thought the next natural step would be to make a kebab from the scratch to understand how the texture and flavor of a meat dish are born with your own efforts. I picked a quiet day and Özgür was happy to help because you need some strong hands if you are mincing the meat for kebab yourself. The outcome: I have not seen my family so happy and content after a meal for a long time – a reward worth a day of work. And I was happy to taste a bite and be sure that the kebab turned out just how I wanted it to be. Here are some tips if you wish to repeat the endeavor.

Choose your meat

Early morning we stopped by a butcher in Sapanca to get three chunks of meat: large piece of lean beef and two smaller pieces of sheep fat oil and sheep chest, a mix that would give a balanced flavor, fat content and juiciness to the kebab. I must admit that we are spoiled here with the abundance of skilled butchers around and there is no cut or mix that you can’t source. They’d happily mince it for you too, you just need to explain what you are going to do with your minced meat: for kebab you are after a rather coarse grind so the butcher will put the meat through the machine only once, while for köfte, Turkish meatballs, you will need finer minced meat. And the butcher would even season the minced meat, if needed. As my idea was to do the kebab from the scratch we left the butcher with three chunks of meat and a blessing.

Get yourself a knife

Here in Turkey the right call would be zırh, a knife that has most likely transformed from a cold steel into a kitchen utensil traditionally used to mince the meat. The pro-version has just one handle and you balance the knife by applying pressure to the top of the blade on the other side. Zırh with two handles is not unlike mezzaluna, an Italian half-moon shaped knife commonly used for mincing too.

I procured a house-forged knife from Antep at my favorite knife store in Eminönü – sharpened, oiled and ready to use. And as soon as mu husband saw it I could hardly re-claim it back: he just would not have enough of using it. Are you still wondering what to gift to the man you adore?

Take your time

It’s recommended cutting the meat into chunks and let it rest in the fridge up to a day before preparing the mixture. I did not do it this time but let the final mixture rest in the fridge the whole day: it worked fine and it stuck really well to the skewers without falling off.

When you are mincing meat by hand it’s very hard to overdo it: when you think you’ve done well there is still a bit of effort to be undertaken. First time it may take a while to find out how the knife works and how to mince quick and safe so plan accordingly.

Find the proper skewers

The skewers for the kebabs made of minced meat such as Adana and Urfa are wide and thick so they keep that mixture you have carefully prepared from falling off onto the coals. Ours are also made of forged iron and have probably been in the family for decades. Before using them it’s good to scrub the skewers to remove any rust or the parts left from the previous kebab making. Deep a half of a raw potato/onion into the coarse salt and scrub each skewer couple of times, rinse and dry thoroughly before using.