How to Make Beef Shish Kebab Part 1/2

Janine Aloisi: Welcome to Turkish Cuisine, I’m Janine Aloisi. Did you know that the Kebab has been a part of Turkish Cuisine for over a thousand years straight from the heart of Turkey the Kebab has been an art form that started in the Topkapi Palace. And now you could try it in your kitchen so let’s go to Jennifer and see how she gets it started.

Jennifer: Hello and welcome to out kitchen. If someone were to ask you to name one Turkish dish, what’s the one thing that almost always instantly pops into your head? Shish Kebab. Shish Kebab is a great classic all around Turkish dish and it’s great for picnics or parties and even warms your stomach on a cold winters night. Now, usually, you can make Shish Kebab with lamb but today we’re going to use beef because I’m feeling kind of beef fit today.

We’re going to use one pound of beef sirloin steak, four wooden skewers that I have soaking in water, a little bit of paprika, a little bit of black pepper, some salt of course and one teaspoon of pepper paste but you could use tomato paste at home that’s okay. This is just to add a little color. And for our marinade we’re going to need one plain white onion and then for our garnishing we’re going to use one red onion and a green pepper.

So for starters, we’re going to take our steak and cube them into one inch cubes. Now, for this you can use a knife or what I like to use is a cooking scissor. It’s really easy and fast and I just find that it’s much easier than the knife. So what I like to do is just cut them up and then we’re going to throw it into our mixing bowl and then slice our onions for the delicious marinate. Now, Shish Kebab is usually made with lamb like I said before but beef is becoming a popular second choice red meat. And I like beef sometimes I mean lamb sometimes I like when it’s lamb chop or something. But when the I have the Shish Kebab sometimes I like a really tender beef. And you can filet mignon that’s also a great way to get a really juicy and soft meat. But if you’re using the lamb, sometimes you can get the shoulder of lamb that’s the most tender part of the lamb or a leg of lamb which my mom likes to use the leg of lamb.

So once you see that you’ve cubed it, now, we’ll slice our onions I will just throw it in there. The onions give it a really great flavor. Now, not always you’re going to have the onions on the skewer with it but you’re going to definitely have the onion juice and onion taste in your meat. Now, you want to marinade this for at least an hour that’s why we’re doing this first, put in the frig and then we’ll start on our side dishes. Now, Shish Kebab literally means skewer kebab because Shish comes from the Turkish word skewer and kebab is basically just any kind of meat or beef that you put on the skewer. Just slice that half and you could get that all throughout Turkey. You can even visit—when you go to visit you can go to Ortaca that’s a really popular place in Turkey where they have great cafes and restaurants and dancing and you really get to see the culture of it and the prettiness of it. And you could get Shish Kebab at the restaurants or on the streets at the street vendors you smell coming from the street and you just got to taste it.

They usually dos is they put in a little pita pocket with some onions and tomatoes and that’s really great. So we’re just going to put a little pinch of that. I like to put the paste because it gives a little bit of color. Of course we need some salt, some pepper. Now, this is just according to taste if you like it a little more spicy you could add that red pepper and I like a little bit of paprika as well just a little pinch. And here’s where we get some olive oil. Now, I like to use extra virgin olive oil because this allows us to get really soft and tender. Just use your eye, use your judgment, and now you’re going to use your hands which are clean, washed and dry and just mix it all up together and it’s so easy. I mean of course there are variations of this but I like Shish Kebab because it’s so simple, it’s so diverse, it’s so easy, use it with the meat, it goes great with rice or potatoes or so many of the different side dishes which we’re going to try some today.

So once you see that you’ve got that all marinade in you could take some clear wrap and wrap it. Now you see I put some pepper paste in there and you use tomato paste as well because this just to give it a little bit of color. And I also think it gives that great succulent flavor. It makes really nice and juicy. So just going to let this marinade in the fridge while we prepare other side dishes. We’re going to take a short break now. When we comeback then start on our delicious soup.