It is quite possible to prepare a fragrant, juicy lula kebab at home in the oven or in a frying pan. It may not have that same smell of real smoke, but the taste is just as wonderful. This option will help you have a “picnic”, even if it’s raining or frosty outside. Don't wait for a nice day to treat yourself to such a delicacy!
Traditionally, lula kebab is cooked over an open fire or grilled coals. But, like kebab from lamb, pork, chicken, fish, the dish can be made on a grill pan or oven tray. As in traditional baking, it has its own characteristics.
Basic principles of cooking delicious meat
This dish is quite capricious; if prepared ineptly, it tends to fall apart during the frying process. To ensure that meat sausages come out juicy, tender, melting in your mouth, but with a crispy crust, you need to follow time-tested tips.
- Good choice of meat. It must be fresh, not defrosted, without foreign odors. Fatty meat is best, especially for more dietary chicken and veal.
- Don't forget about fat; the traditional recipe uses fat tail fat, but it can be replaced with pork fat. It should be about ¼ of the total volume, but not less, then the minced meat will acquire the required viscosity, and the finished product will acquire juiciness.
- Avoid adding traditional cutlet fillers (bread, potatoes, eggs).
- Finely chop the onion so that it releases its juice when frying, or first grate the product and carefully remove the juice, otherwise the minced meat will become too liquid and unsuitable for forming sausages.
- Use a minimum of additives - only salt and spices. Among the latter, black and red ground pepper, fresh herbs, coriander, and cumin are suitable. Salt should be used sparingly to retain the juices in the meat.
- You need to knead the mixture for a long time, at least 15 minutes, so that the meat begins to separate into fibers, when the minced meat becomes viscous, homogeneous and holds well in your hands, it can be placed on skewers.
- It is convenient to sculpt the blanks with your hands soaked in cold water.
- If wooden skewers are used as a base, they need to be soaked in water for 10-15 minutes; dry ones will burn in the oven.
- When forming sausages, you should carefully press the mixture to the base, pressing it with your fingers (especially at the edges) and squeezing out air bubbles from the inside - otherwise juice will accumulate and boil there, which will cause cracking and damage to the sausage.
- The dish should be cooked at high temperature, which causes the formation of a dense crust on the meat, this will help retain all the juice inside. If the heat is too low, the workpieces soften and fall into pieces.
Lula kebab with rice and vegetables
Kitchen utensils: container for mixing minced meat, cutting board, knife, pan for cooking rice, frying pan.
Ingredients
mutton | 500 g |
bulb | 1 head |
coriander | 4 branches |
cumin | 1 tsp. |
salt | 1 tsp. |
pepper | taste |
frying oil | 85 ml |
cream 33% | 100 ml |
water | 50 ml |
rice | 1 glass |
Ingredient Selection
- All you need for lula kebab is a little meat and spices. To prepare the dish, I took ready-made minced lamb. If you prepare minced meat yourself, pay attention when purchasing meat that fresh lamb is bright red. It is better to buy the back part for making lula kebab .
- Coriander, or in other words cilantro, improves the taste of the dish, and it is also a source of vitamins A and C.
- I also add cumin seasoning. This spice will add a pleasant aroma and spicy taste.
- I prepared a sauce for the dish from cream with a fat content of 33%; it is better to take it out of the refrigerator. This creme fraiche, in my opinion, is ideal for meat dishes. As a side dish – steamed rice.
Cooking steps
- I cut one onion into small cubes.
- Place 500 g of minced lamb in a glass bowl and add onion.
- I also chop 3 sprigs of fresh coriander and add a teaspoon of cumin.
- Sprinkle with pepper to taste and add about a level teaspoon of salt.
- Mix well and put in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
- I will string the minced sausages onto wooden skewers. First I put them in a glass of hot water. This is done so that they do not burn.
- I move on to preparing the sauce. Place 100 ml of cream in a glass container.
- I chop a sprig of coriander and pour it into the cream.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Now I pour in 50 ml of water and mix thoroughly.
- I serve rice as a side dish. I fill a glass of steamed long-grain rice with three glasses of cold water.
- I add 15 ml of vegetable oil.
- Cook over low heat with the lid closed until done. I sprinkle the finished rice with herbs.
- I take the minced meat out of the refrigerator. I take a ball of prepared minced meat, thread a skewer and form a long sausage with pointed ends about 8-10 cm long. I place the lula kebab on a dish.
- Heat a frying pan with vegetable oil (70 ml). Lay out the sausages and fry over medium heat on all sides. Finally, I cover the pan with a lid and steam for a few minutes.
- I put the finished lula kebabs on a plate, add vegetables and cooked rice and a few spoons of sauce. This beautiful and appetizing dish can be prepared at minimal cost.
Video recipe for cooking lula kebab in a frying pan with a side dish of rice
If you have never cooked lula kebab before, it is best to try it in a frying pan. And to feel more confident while cooking, you can watch a short video clip, which will become a kind of instruction and will not allow you to skip a single step of the recipe.
Lula kebab does not have to be made from lamb. Few people love her. This dish can be made from chicken, beef and pork. The main thing is that the meat is fatty, then the finished dish will be juicy and tasty. Do not add eggs or bread under any circumstances. The composition should contain only meat, lard and spices.
This dish goes well with vegetables and fresh herbs. You can sprinkle generously with pickled onions and add a spicy red sauce, such as tkemali. And it’s better to savor lula kebab with red wine. This simple dish can be quickly prepared for lunch or dinner.
Lula kebab from beef and pork in the oven
A simple, but very satisfying, tasty version of shish kebab is prepared from a mixture of pork and beef.
For this yummy you will need:
- Minced beef – 300 g
- Minced pork – 300-400 g
- Lard (pork fat) – 100 g
- Onions – 1-2 pcs.
- Salt, pepper to taste
Preparation:
- Peel the onion and cut it into cubes very finely.
- Set the oven to preheat at 200-220 degrees.
- Mix all ingredients, knead thoroughly with your hands.
- Cover the baking sheet with parchment.
- We wet our hands in water and use them to string a piece of meat onto a skewer, forming an oblong sausage.
- This is what we do with the rest of the mass.
- Place in the oven for 30 minutes, serve with vegetables and side dish.
Step-by-step recipe for chicken lula kebab in a frying pan
A gentle, dietary version of kebab - for those who care about their health and figure. It is truly dietary, since there is no fat traditional for the dish, and baking in the oven prevents the meat from burning - a truly healthy, wholesome food made from animal protein.
Ingredients:
- Chicken fillet – 400 g
- Onions – 1 pc.
- Fresh greens – 1 bunch
- Salt to taste
- Ground black pepper - to taste
- Vegetable oil for frying
Soak wooden skewers in cold water.
- Wash the chicken breast, finely chop with a knife or grind in a blender.
- Do the same with onions and herbs.
- Combine everything, mix, beat for 3 minutes, lifting a piece of the mass and forcefully throwing it back into the bowl. The mixture is ready if it has become dense and viscous.
- Wet your hands in cold water, form small cutlets from the mixture, place them on prepared skewers, using your fingers to level the meat along the base.
- The traditional shape is considered to be an even shape of the workpiece with a slight thinning towards the edges, but if you want, you can use your fingers to give the sausage a pattern, for example, a spiral.
- Fry the cutlets in a preheated frying pan greased with vegetable oil until golden brown on both sides.
Video - how to cook lamb kebab at home
A classic version of the dish, but cooked at home, in the oven - when you want something tasty, but you can’t go on a picnic.
For preparation you will need:
- Lamb – 400 g
- Lard – 100 g
- Onions – 300 g
- Garlic to taste
- Salt, pepper, spices to taste
Preparation:
- We grind the meat and lard into minced meat; you can also simply use very fatty lamb.
- Peel the onion, wash it, cut it into small cubes.
- We peel, chop the garlic, add it to the meat, add spices and salt there.
- Knead the dense mass until it becomes viscous.
- Place it in the cold for 1 hour so that the fat hardens and the minced meat becomes denser.
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, cover a baking sheet with foil.
- We form kebabs on wooden skewers pre-soaked in water and place them on foil.
- Bake for 40 minutes, 20 minutes after the start of cooking, turn the skewers over to ensure even cooking.
Cooking tips
If you want your Lula kebab to melt in your mouth at home, then use the following tips for the cooking process:
- To prepare minced meat, you need to choose fresh meat that has not been frozen. Determine the degree of freshness by smell and color. Residents of eastern countries prepare lula kebab using the back of young lamb. However, you can take any other type of meat or use several types at once for minced meat.
- The best way to make minced meat is this: cut the meat into 1-1.5 cm slices, place it on a hard wooden board, chop the meat with a hatchet along the grain, then across it. Afterwards, the meat needs to be collected in the middle, turned over, leveled, and chopped again. If this process is too labor-intensive for you, then use a meat grinder with a large grid. However, you need to be careful and monitor the operation of the device: if a film or a large piece of meat gets stuck and you continue to turn the handle, the meat grinder will begin to squeeze out meat juice, and the minced meat will turn out to be too wet and will fall off the skewers.
- The next important condition for preparing a delicious lula kebab is the addition of fat tail fat. This affects the viscosity of the finished mixture. The amount of fat should be at least a quarter of the total amount of meat. The consistency should not be pasty. Therefore, the lard must first be freed from films, cut into plates, then into strips, and then chopped very finely with a sharp knife. To make this easier for you, lightly freeze the lard.
- Before turning the meat into minced meat, it is important to get rid of veins and films that can spoil the lula kebab. A juicy and tender dish should melt in your mouth, and not get stuck due to hard lumps of veins.
- An obligatory component is onion. It must be finely chopped with a knife, but not twisted in a meat grinder, otherwise it will ruin the viscosity of the minced meat. It is important not to overdo it with onions: use no more than a third of the volume of meat, otherwise onion juice will prevent you from forming lula kebab.
- Minced meat is prepared without bread, eggs, starch or other thickeners. Lard plays the role of a binding component; you also need to season it with cumin, black pepper, salt in moderation, and herbs.
- The next secret to making lula kebab is kneading and beating the minced meat. You need to do this for 20 minutes, no less. You will notice how protein begins to be released, which gives viscosity and plasticity, and the fat will be better distributed throughout the meat. It is necessary to beat and knead the mass until you obtain a homogeneous mixture that does not stick to your hands.
- When the minced meat is ready, it must be placed in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours so that the fat hardens. It cannot be frozen. At this stage, you can roll up the sausages in portions, wrap them in film, and put them in the refrigerator.
- To shape and thread, prepare salted warm water to wet your hands and cold wide skewers. Do not make sausages that are too thick, otherwise they will not bake well. Carefully form the minced meat around the skewer so that it fits snugly without creating a void.
- Lula kebab is fried over coals. In this case, the skewers need to be quickly turned over so that the minced meat is browned on all sides and the juice is baked inside. Do not pour water into hot coals, otherwise the dish will absorb smoke. To ensure air circulates and the kebab cooks evenly, use a fan.