Kebabs!!! with AH2

Glaucus · 9 Jul 2013 at 15:57

A kebab machine is several hundread, so out of the picture.

I have an electric spit roast and I'll fabricate a verticals bbq briquette holder. I think that should work.

Anyone find out, how they cooked them before gas and electricity. I'm assuming they aren't a modern invention.

Guerrilla · 9 Jul 2013 at 16:09

Would guess they used to look more like this in the past...

Horizontal might be easier to do if you are wanting to knock something up yourself?

Glaucus · 9 Jul 2013 at 16:11

Thanks, horizontal would be easier.

Will have to have a think. Probably take a month or so to get it altogether.

Also found this which is pretty straight forward

Guerrilla · 9 Jul 2013 at 16:24

Make sure to post pictures when you do it, looking forward to that meaty goodness

Glaucus · 9 Jan 2015 at 20:46

Well still haven't done the monster kebab

However I will be making these off Jamie and Jimmy Friday night feasts.
Already ordered some uda pods before the program has even finished.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef-recipes/nigerian-suya/

Edit - sod it electric kebab machine purchased, so next payday will buy chicken and lamb for doner kebabs.

BaZ87 · 9 Jan 2015 at 23:35

Planning on doing the exact same thing myself this weekend. Bought an electric machine last week and got the lamb marinating in the fridge ready for Sunday. I successfully tracked down some sheep's tale fat too:

http://www.tfcsupermarkets.com/branches.html

I got it in their Palmers Green store. I even asked their butcher for a few tips on making the doner as they had their own takeaway doner/café on the side of the supermarket but he wasn't very helpful.

Hoping for better results than my last attempt a few years ago. I bought a small gas doner machine when I was on holiday in Cyprus but I think there was a problem with it as it wasn't getting as hot as it should have.

Glaucus · 9 Jan 2015 at 23:43

Please post results.
And damn you found some, that store looks great, shame it's London only.

mzal · 10 Jan 2015 at 00:00

I tried this one and it was great.

http://www.hairybikers.com/recipes/dieters-doner-kebabs/1767#O7uDveVE3V4Cmc1g.97

I put a bit of extra garlic in the recipe because i love garlic.

I cooked in a bit different though. I got an large tin can (think it had chopped tomatoes in originally) lined it with cling film and layered up the meat patties inside making sure they are squashed down well. I then folded the cling film over the top to seal it up. I got a oven dish and half filled it with boiling water, sat the tin in that and popped it in the oven. This apparently stops the clingfilm melting to the tin.
Once it was cooked I took it out of the tin and sat it on a plate and used a blow torch to brown it off. You can then shave it off in strips like a proper kebab house donner. It was amazing and a lot less greasy than one from a take away.

Rich_L · 10 Jan 2015 at 02:05

I read a Food Lab take on the gyro on Serious Eats which basically treated the prep much like making a sausage then had the absurdly simple idea of just cutting the meat loaf into pieces, putting on a baking tray and sticking under the broiler to crisp up.

Here found it :

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/06/greek-american-lamb-gyros-homemade-from-scratch-the-food-lab.html

Might give it a go on Sunday

Glaucus · 10 Jan 2015 at 02:33

Fails at the first hurdle, ground meat. Wtf. Serious eats is normally better than that, however the rest of it is a good read.

Rich_L · 10 Jan 2015 at 03:14

Tbf he does explicitly state he's trying to mimic the shop doner kebab and when the instructions include blitzing the meat into a smooth paste it seems a little pointless using pieces of meat vs ground

FrenchTart · 10 Jan 2015 at 08:48

I love Kenji's stuff (and the rest of the SE site).

I can see where he was going with that recipe given his aims but personally mimicking that kind of take away donner kebab isn't something I'd want to do

Rich_L · 10 Jan 2015 at 16:27

Haha I'm the opposite, I can't get proper lamb doner here in SB/California so I'm definitely giving it a go

I'd have to go down to LA and even then it's made with beef instead of lamb, le sigh.

Tacos al pastor is the Mexican version of the elephant leg and fortunately is delicious and available everywhere so there's that at least!

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/05/food-lab-tacos-al-pastor.html

Makes the same points as the in the gyro recipe funnily enough - salting important, use bacon for extra fattiness/flavour, bake and broil to finish!

BaZ87 · 10 Jan 2015 at 22:07

Ok, I blitzed up 1 large onion, the juice from 2 lemons, salt, white pepper, black pepper, parsley and sumac for the marinade. I marinated it over night before building the doner:

I've now wrapped it in clingfilm and stuck it in the fridge until tomorrow. Hopefully it might hold together better making it easier to cut.

Glaucus · 10 Jan 2015 at 22:11

Oh man that's looking good.

BaZ87 · 11 Jan 2015 at 15:08

Here we go:

It took a good 40 minutes cooking before you could cut the first portion (sorry I forgot to take a pic before I started hacking away at it) and from that size doner you could only cut 1 portion at a time. It only took 4-5 minutes before it was ready to slice again though.

Excuse the poor quality of the slicing but I don't think I had a big enough knife.

A bit of salad wrapped in a really thin flat bread and lunch is ready. Sorry for no pics of the finished article, I was too busy eating to think about that.

All in all it was a very good first attempt but there are a few things I'd tweak for next time. One or even half a lemon would have been enough and I'd probably put a bit more salt, pepper and sumac in (I only went with around 1 tea spoon each to 2kg of lamb). I'd be tempted to go with a fattier cut of lamb too (I went with leg this time) or maybe layer some of the sheep tale fat in between as it was a tad dry. The last thing would be to lift the bottom plate on the skewer up as high as possible to raise the doner up as it cooks quicker at the top.

Glaucus · 11 Jan 2015 at 15:58

Was that 2k of lamb?
Looks amazing, electric grill seems to have worked well. Mine should be here Tuesday.

I'll probably start with chicken as I have a lots of chicken thighs in the freezer.

Watch the hairy bikers one, Iirc they put fat, or trimmings in between.

Oh and proper carving knife, any good what make?

BaZ87 · 11 Jan 2015 at 16:09

About 2kg yea. And yea, they minced up some fatty lamb trimmings and layered that in. Lamb's generally quite fatty so I thought I could get away with just a leg of lamb but it needed a bit more to keep it moist in the middle.

And the knife's actually a proper doner knife that I got with my gas doner machine in Cyprus. It was a bit of a pain carving as you have to switch the thing off to stop it rotating and with the door on it, it's hard to get inside to carve it. Using a samurai didn't help with that though. I'm sure it would have been easier with a smaller knife.

sid · 11 Jan 2015 at 17:07

BaZ87 said:
About 2kg yea. And yea, they minced up some fatty lamb trimmings and layered that in. Lamb's generally quite fatty so I thought I could get away with just a leg of lamb but it needed a bit more to keep it moist in the middle.

And the knife's actually a proper doner knife that I got with my gas doner machine in Cyprus. It was a bit of a pain carving as you have to switch the thing off to stop it rotating and with the door on it, it's hard to get inside to carve it. Using a samurai didn't help with that though. I'm sure it would have been easier with a smaller knife.

That is amazing stuff but i have a few questions...

How much did that machine cost?
How thinly do you shave to prevent raw meat being cut?
Do you re fry the meat?
How do you finish 2kg of lamb?? Thats a weeks worth of meat lol

BaZ87 · 11 Jan 2015 at 17:24

The machine was only £60. If you google vertical rotisserie you'll find loads from anywhere between £50-100. I'd probably recommend anybody buying one to get one without the door. It might lose a bit of heat but it'll be a lot easier when it comes to slicing the meat.

I managed to slice it about 0.5cm thick but you don't need to worry about it being raw underneath. After 40 minutes of roasting (when I began slicing) it's pretty much cooked through.

And no frying or refrying. The pic you see was just after I sliced it. You then turn it back on and it continues to cook and colour the exposed meat before you slice again. Rinse and repeat until it's finished.

It was between 1.5kg and 2kg but still, lunch for 2 people and it'll be dinner for 4 or 5 of us. I doubt there will be much left.