It is quite possible to prepare an oriental aromatic dish at home. And most importantly, you don’t have to go far to create a delicious lula kebab. After all, having everything you need at hand, you can create an incredibly tasty dish in no time, using modern technology.
Minced meat cooked in the form of a tube has been known since the times of the Turkic tribes. It was they who came up with the idea of creating the original recipe. It was convenient to cook in any conditions. Therefore, in the Caucasus and Asian countries, many different interpretations have now been invented using all kinds of meat with unusual combinations of vegetables and spices. And every time the result is simply excellent.
Turkic tribes preferred to cook from lamb meat. It needed to be chopped heavily, a large amount of onion and spices added, and formed into a kind of tube. Using a skewer, minced meat in the form of lula kebab was fried and served.
Spices had to be approached with extreme caution, since a lot depended on them. A competent selection of herbs provides incredible taste and richness. But which ones you should choose specifically depends on the cook himself.
What is so remarkable about lula kebab? It has everything you can enjoy: a crispy and golden-brown crust, as well as an incredibly juicy and tender filling. The result is unsurpassed. And everyone without exception will be delighted with such a dish.
There is a widespread misconception that such a dish should be prepared exclusively in nature. There is a reason for this. But when the weather is not pleasant and it is not possible to go out of town, there is always the option of creating this culinary miracle at home. Lula kebab in the oven is just as good. And at the same time, absolutely everyone will be able to enjoy gastronomic pleasure.
Below are 4 recipes from various types of meat, cooked in the oven, on the grill and in a frying pan. Accordingly, if a beef dish is in the oven, then you can cook it in any of the listed ways. So, let's begin:
- Beef (with video)
- Lamb (with video)
- Grilled pork (with video)
- Chicken (with video)
Recipe for the correct minced meat for lula kebab on the grill
The main component in this dish is tenderloin. Therefore, you need to approach his choice seriously and responsibly.
High-quality and fresh meat will be the ideal solution, do not cook from frozen!
Decide for yourself which type of tenderloin you prefer: lamb, pork or beef. Or maybe you don’t disdain chicken. A mixture of several varieties is also in demand and goes great.
It is better to finely chop the pieces for lula kebab with a hatchet - this is ideal, you can put them through a large grate in a meat grinder. Yes, there is enough preliminary work here, fortunately it is not difficult.
Another important condition in this dish is lard. Its content in minced meat should be 1/3-1/4 of the total amount of meat, or more, but not less.
Tip: Only wide skewers should be used.
We will need:
- lamb – 1 kg
- tail fat - 0.5 kg
- onion - 250 g
- salt
- pepper
Cooking method:
1. Take lamb meat and fat tail fat and pass it through a large grinder.
2. Peel three or four onions. Take a medium size and a desirable new crop.
3. Finely chop the vegetable with a knife. Do you want not to cry while butchering? Then place this fruit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours in advance.
4. Pour it over the minced meat.
5. Add salt, ground black pepper and mix until smooth. Beat for 15-20 minutes. Then put it in the refrigerator for half an hour.
6. After 30 minutes, place the minced meat on skewers, forming a sausage so that the meat fits tightly to it, expelling all air bubbles.
To avoid getting your hands dirty, you can wear disposable plastic gloves.
7. Fry the lula kebab on hot coals until cooked, periodically turning the skewers to ensure even frying on all sides.
8. Serve the finished dish hot, decorated with onion rings, herbs and vegetables. Bon appetit!
Cooking features
- Traditionally, lamb is used for lula kebab, but today the minced meat for this dish is made from all types of meat, often even mixing them. The taste of the finished dish depends on this, but in any case it will be wonderful if the meat used is high-quality and fresh. That is, it is best to take the pulp, ideally tenderloin or meat from the shoulder blade. If you use poultry meat, it is better to combine breast and leg meat to make the minced meat juicier.
- Minced meat for lula kebab is not made from frozen meat, as it turns out loose and dry.
- To prepare minced meat, you need to chop the meat with a special hatchet or a heavy knife. To do this, the meat is usually cut into flat pieces about 1 cm wide. The pieces are placed two or three on top of each other. Then they are cut in one direction, then in another - perpendicular to the previous one, you can also cut them diagonally. Then the chopped meat is collected towards the center, compacted and chopped in this way again. The process continues until all the meat is ground into mince. As a last resort, you can use a meat grinder, but then you should turn the meat through a grate with large holes. This labor-intensive method of preparing minced meat is not just a tribute to tradition. If you turn the meat through a grate with small holes, it will lose a lot of juice during the chopping process, resulting in the lula kebab not being juicy enough. That’s why you shouldn’t use store-bought minced meat for lula kebab – you’ll have to make it yourself.
- As already mentioned, the composition of minced meat for lula kebab does not include those products that hold together the minced meat for cutlets. They are replaced with fat tail fat or lard. Ideally, for 1 kg of meat you need to take 300 g of lard or fat, although you can reduce their amount to 100–200 g, especially if you are going to bake lula kebabs in the oven or fry them in a frying pan. Minced beef is prepared with the addition of a significant amount of lard; you can put less of it in pork. Sometimes lard is not added to minced chicken at all, although for cooking lula kebab on the grill it is better if lard is included in the minced meat.
- Fat tail fat or lard must be thoroughly chopped before mixing with minced meat. They can be chopped in the same way as meat, but they can also be chopped in a different way. For example, cool tail fat and grate it on a coarse grater. Cut the lard into small pieces and grind with a blender. If it takes on a paste-like consistency, that’s even better: it will spread evenly and hold the minced meat together.
- An important component of minced meat is onion, and you shouldn’t give it up, even though it produces a lot of juice. You just don’t need to chop the onion in a blender or turn it through a meat grinder - just finely chop it with a knife. Moreover, when adding onions, it does not hurt to observe the measure. For 1 kg of meat, 200 g of onions is quite enough, although sometimes more is added.
- Salt, ground pepper, cumin, turmeric, coriander, dried herbs, and fresh herbs are also added to the minced meat for lula kebab. You can focus on your taste, it’s just important not to overdo it. Additionally, you can put in the minced meat, deviating from the traditional recipe, cheese, sweet peppers instead of onions, boiled and finely chopped eggs, but there should not be too much of these ingredients in the minced meat, since they are not in the traditional recipe.
- Kneading is important when preparing minced meat for lula kebab. You need to knead the base component with your hands for quite a long time, at least 15 minutes, usually 20–25 minutes. After this, it’s a good idea to beat the minced meat, placing it in a bag to protect it from splashes. As a result, the meat base should be very dense and viscous.
It is recommended to cool the finished minced meat for at least an hour before preparing lula kebab. Thanks to this, it will become even denser, it will be easier to form lula-kebabs from it, and they will sit on skewers more firmly.
Reference! The name lula kebab comes from a combination of two words: the Turkish “lulya” - pipe and the Persian “kebab” - fried meat.
How to deliciously cook lula kebab on the grill at home
Now is the time to go out into nature, relax and barbecue. To diversify your diet in the fresh air, I offer an alternative to traditional grilled meat, a simple recipe for making lula kebab.
We will need:
- beef – 1 kg
- beef fat – 300 g
- onions – 2 pcs.
- salt - to taste
- ground black pepper
- cumin
- cilantro
Method of preparation:
1. Take beef tenderloin and lard.
2. Cut into pieces and twist on a large wire rack through a meat grinder. Peel the onion and chop it with a knife.
3. Next, add salt, adding seasonings to taste and mix well. Beat the minced meat for about 20 minutes. Place in the refrigerator for an hour and a half. If you don’t have time to wait long, you can start making it. Do not forget to release the air when sculpting the minced meat onto the skewer. What a beauty, just look.
4. Light up the grill and fry our sausages over high heat so that the crust immediately sets, which will prevent the meat from falling into the coals.
5. Eat it hot with vegetables and herbs! And most importantly, it looks so cool that your mouth is already running on its own.
By the way, you can serve pickled onions as an appetizer, it will be divine.
Video recipes
A well-prepared lula kebab is the king of all kebabs and barbecues. It can be made from lamb, chicken, veal, marbled beef. At first glance, the cooking process is simple: finely chop the meat, mix with onions and fat, form into cutlets, skewer and fry. However, not everything is so easy! The main secret is the correct threading on skewers, which is not so easy to do. In addition, there are subtleties in preparing minced meat. And you will learn about them by watching the YouTube videos below about preparing lula kebab from famous gastronomes.
Recipe from Stalik Khankishiev
From minced meat
Lula kebab made from minced pork and beef on the grill
These crazy sausages can be fried not only on skewers or in the oven, but also on the grill. An excellent solution, and also a quick one, so to speak in a hurry, with such a device the work will go much faster.
Did you know how the name of this dish is translated? Lula - pipe, kebab - fried meat.
It turns out very tasty and is easy to prepare, especially for those who did not have time to buy skewers and only have a wire rack available. If you haven't tried this culinary creation yet, go for it! You will not regret!
We will need:
- Pork – 500 g
- Beef – 500 g
- Onion – 2 pcs.
- Garlic – 3 cloves
- Salt
- Pepper
Cooking method:
1. Cut the pork and beef, peeled from films, into layers 1-1.5 cm thick, chop with a hatchet, first along the fibers, then across. Chop until you get fine minced meat. You'll have to tinker a little, but what can you do, it's worth it.
2. Peel the onion and garlic, chop, add to the minced meat.
3. Salt and pepper to taste, mix well and beat for twenty minutes so that the protein is released from the meat and the mass becomes viscous. If possible, place in the refrigerator for an hour.
4. Next, wet your hands in hot water and form cutlets, place them on the barbecue grill and fry over coals until cooked, remembering to turn them over for even frying.
5. These are some beauties that came out, juicy with a golden crust, they could have added some sauce and an alcoholic drink and in general a fairy tale. By the way, tomatoes and parsley will fit perfectly here.
Delicious beef lula kebab on skewers so that the meat does not fall off
It is very important that the minced meat stays on the skewers and does not slide into the grill. Do you think this is a mandatory condition? How could it be otherwise, because then the decisive outcome will be ruined, and so will your mood and rest.
I present to your attention a new option, if you prepare it, you will be delighted with the result. If you think this is difficult to understand, then you are deeply mistaken. If you have unique detailed instructions with pictures at hand.
We will need:
- beef tenderloin - 1 kg
- onion - 150 g
- fresh pork lard - 0.25 kg
- fresh herbs - a bunch
- salt
- herbs and spices
Cooking method:
1. Pass the meat and lard through a meat grinder. Wow, the way it sounds, everyone is running away from the kitchen at once. Although you can, if the portion is small, take a regular hand-held one and puff a little, as they did before without nanotechnology.
2. Chop the onion and greens finely with a knife. Combine all ingredients, salt, pepper, mix well. We beat back. And put it in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.
3. With hands soaked in salted hot water, take the mixture and roll it into a small medium-sized ball. Place it on a flat, wide skewer and use your palm to form a sausage, expelling the air so that the meat is pressed tightly against the skewer.
Fry over high heat until the crust sets and holds the meat inside. Bon appetit!
Classic chicken kebab recipe
We’ve reached one more option, which wins more and more hearts every year, especially women’s. After all, he is gentle and very cool, he especially pleases those people who want to look perfect and take care of their figure.
Plus, it cooks faster than if you cooked it any other way. Do you know what's the matter? It’s in the magic piece, namely the chicken. I don’t think anyone will refuse such a dietary snack or main course.
We will need:
- chicken legs - 1 kg
- onion - 300 g
- frozen lard - 140 g
- coarse salt - 1 tsp
- ground black and red pepper
Cooking method:
1. Take the legs and separate them from all the bones with your hands or a knife. Divide into small pieces.
2. Then chop the lard into cubes.
3. Pepper and salt, do it at your discretion, but do not overdo it with red.
4. Next, add the onions and mix with your hands. Let's chop it into half rings with a knife. Mix.
5. We pass all the ingredients further through the meat grinder. At the exit, minced meat awaits us; it should look uniform. To do this, stir thoroughly with your hands until smooth.
6. Let’s mold and form the dish into the shape we need.
But, remember these rules: periodically wet your hands in cold water, take the skewer only flat, as well as dry and cold, during sculpting the minced meat should fit tightly to the stick. And the most important thing is to cut off the two ends of the kebab so that the edges do not tear during cooking.
7. Afterwards, fry on the grill, but do not turn the skewer often, otherwise all the juice needed in this delicacy will come out. As soon as the crust appears, remove it from a flat skewer. And enjoy the chicken deliciousness. Bon appetit!
What you need to know to cook in the oven
Is the weather not allowing you to go on a picnic? Don't you have a barbecue at all? Then we prepare lula kebab at home. But what if standard skewers don’t fit in the oven? It's time to think about wooden skewers. But here we face problems. Firstly, such skewers can burn due to high temperatures in the oven. And secondly, meat sticks to wood worse than to metal. There are solutions to problems.
- The skewers need to be thoroughly soaked in cold water ahead of time.
- In order for the lula to hold securely on such a wooden skewer, you should knead the minced meat well.
- Let's give him a viscosity test: roll up a sausage 10-15 centimeters long and hold it in the air, holding it by one end. The sausage must support its own weight.
- Place the minced meat on a board and level it out.
- Place a skewer on top and twist it, wrapping the meat on it.
- We make sure that the mass fits tightly and there are no voids in it.
