Lamb shish kebabs.

Sadly this dish has often been just the food that you eat late at night after you have had far to much to drink and are starving. Often made from some kind of compressed lamb that is formed and carved of in thin slivers so that it can be paced in a flat bread and breached in chilli sauce.  Well I want to try and make you think once more about it and what it could be , in fact lets just make it and see what you think if you eat it for a lunch or dinner.  I can assure you there is more to the lamb kebab than you think. The real grate thing about this is that you can get lots of fresh vegetables and salad on the plate and you can all have a go at doing it your self. Just get every thing ready and put it all on a try in the middle of the table and lets the kids help them selves.  And you do not have to use lamb, chicken beef and pork work just as well.  

You will need

4 garlic cloves

¾ tsp ground cumin

600g/1lb 5oz lamb leg meat

150g/5oz Greek-style yoghurt

handful fresh mint leaves

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Salt

1-2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

For the flatbreads

4 x 20cm/8in ready-made flatbreads

To serve

Red or white cabbage (optional)

Iceberg lettuce (optional)

Chilli sauce (optional)

Tomatoes (optional)

Red or white onions (optional)

Dill pickles (optional)

Pickled chillies (optional)

First, you want to prep your meat.  Now what you want to do is cut the lamb up in to either cubes or in to long strips.  But what ever you do use a knife and try and remove as much sinew and connective tissue as possible.  This way when you cook the meat it will remain tender and not go all though.  A little time here will make all the difference latter and the fact that this doe not take long to cook most of the effort goes in now you will get the benefits latter.

Once you have cut your meat up get it in a bowl and add 2 cloves of crushed garlic and cumin, mix it all together with the meat.  Then set aside for 2 hours or leave over night in the fridge.

While all that is chilling make your yogurt sauce.  Take your 2 reaming cloves of garlic and crush them and put it in a bowl along with some chopped mint. Then some salt, lemon juice, and olive oil give this all a good bash around so that you get all the juices working together then add your yoghurt.  Stir it round, cover this, and pop it in the fridge.

When you are ready to cook get your oven on and pop the flat breads in to warm through.  Do not have it on high or crisp them up or you will just have them crack and the fill will go every where.

Get your meat and fry that in a pan that is very hot, do not worry about lots of oil, just brush the pan with some.  As the lamb cooks the fat from the meat will stop the meat from sticking. As a rule if it does stick it is not cooked.  All you need is a little confidence that it once it is cooked you will be able to remove it.  Also all depending on how much you can cook at one time but you do not want it to wet in the frying pan or the meat will start to stew in its own juices.  The best pan if you have it is a bar marked griddle pan. Then remove the meat out of the pan and on to the side.  Take out the flat bread make a slit in the side and from a pocket and put some of the meat inside.

Now you have to think about what you want with your kebabs.  Now a lot of what I have put on the list of ingredients are optional.  This is because either you have them or you do not. All you have to do is have every thing sliced nice and thin and so when you put it on the finished kebabs you are not waiting around to chop things up.

For me I would use whit cabbage sliced thin, iceberg lettuce, tomato sliced yogurt sauce and chilli sauce with the odd pickled green chilli in it perfect.