Uighur Lamb Kebabs
It is our misfortune to inhabit what is politely termed a “mixed” area. Meaning there are lots of apartment buildings mixed in with single family homes. AT&T has terrible difficulty with this. Every time somebody moves out of an apartment, a tech comes out to the nearby box and instead of disconnecting whoever just moved out, he (it’s never a she) disconnects our landline and internet.
This has happened five times in the past year.
The fifth time was last Friday, and it was, pardon my language, an absolute fucking nightmare. On each of our many, many calls to AT&T we explained John needed access to a working landline and internet because, you know, Muscular Dystrophy. This did not penetrate. No tech was available until Monday. Monday arrived. The tech did not.
Actual person in wheelchair. Who requires landline. And internet. Just, you know, in case.
Service was finally restored midday Tuesday, which enabled me to report AT&T to the Federal Trade Commission.
—
Moving to another cheerful topic: the Uighers.
The Uighers are a Muslim minority people living in China’s Xinjiang region–the Northeast. If you have a bottle of Chinkiang vinegar in your cupboard, it was made in the same place.
For some time the Uighers, along with another minority group, the Kazakhs, have been subject to persecution by Chinese leadership. If you want to learn more about the situation, read this.
As food is a way to understand one another, I decided to prepare a Uigher dish. I began paging through my Chinese cookbooks. No recipes.
Camera on wrong setting.
As if my life weren’t crazy enough, my computer crashed last week. I lost all the pictures associated with this post. Bear with me.
Only two books in my collection had Uigher recipes. These were Carolyn Phillips’ All Under Heaven and Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford’s Beyond The Great Wall: Recipes And Travels in the Other China.
Surely there are more books out there; the library reopens in a few weeks. Until then, I can say Uigher cuisine seems strikingly similar to Mediterranean food: tandoor baked flatbreads, kebabs made from lamb or goat, simple potato dishes enlivened with cumin or red pepper. But as always, there is far more to know.
This lamb kebab dish is a slightly altered version of a recipe from Beyond The Great Wall. Perhaps–perhaps–cooking a meal can bring us nearer to those across the world, in spirit if not body, and let those suffering know we do not turn a blind eye.
Uigher Lamb Kebabs
Adapted from Beyond The Great Wall: Recipes And Travels In The Other China, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid
Prep time: ideally the lamb should marinate for 2-24 hours; if you are pressed for time, you can skip this step, but the dish won’t be as flavorful. Actual assembly and cooking time is brief.
Please read notes before beginning to cook
1 pound/454 grams ground lamb or lamb kebabs
1 small onion or shallot, peeled and cut into medium pieces
1 tablespoon garlic, peeled and crushed
1/4 cup/60 ml pomegranate molasses
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
A small food processor is ideal here, but if you have a larger one that manages small amounts of food, use that. Or just chop the onion/shallot very finely with a large knife.
If you are using a food processor, place the onion or shallot in it, along with the garlic, and process to a paste. Or chop very finely.
Scrape the paste into a large bowl.
Wash the processor.
Now add the lamb to the oniony paste in the bowl. Add the pomegranate molasses, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Blend everything with either your clean hands or a large spoon. Cover the bowl and refrigerate, 2-24 hours.
Remove lamb from fridge about an hour before cooking.
I do not skewer it, as John cannot manage skewers and I’d just have to remove the skewers.
So,
You can cook the lamb either stove-top or in the oven.
If you are using the oven, preheat it to 325F/160C.
Cover a large baking sheet with tinfoil or a silpat, or get out a heavy frying pan. You won’t need fat, as lamb is fatty enough by itself.
Form the lamb into palm-sized patties and lay them on the baking sheet. I get10-12 out of 1 pound.
Either cook the lamb over medium low heat, about five minutes a side, until cooked through–this is a matter of personal choice, but be sure the lamb is pink, not underdone.
Or cook the lamb in the oven, 25-40 minutes, depending on your oven and how done you want the lamb.
Serve with flatbreads, to be authentic–though this cooking method is inauthenic–or rice, with sliced cucumber, fried potatoes dusted with salt and/or cayenne, and/or a green salad, and please spare a thought for those Xinjiang Province.
Notes:
The original recipe calls for lamb shoulder, cut into kebabs. Feel free to do this. I had ground lamb in the house, so used it.
My husband loathes onion but likes shallot–go figure–so I used one lobe of shallot in the recipe.
The original recipe calls for pomegranate juice or fresh lemon juice mixed 1/4 teaspoon sugar. As pomegranate molasses is widely available today, I used it.
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