Seekh Kebab: Street Food at Home
Recipe Details
Who says you can’t experience your favorite foods from the comfort of your home! MBSS will be sharing our favorite street foods, monthly. Street Food made at home – MBSS style!
We continue this series by making one of my favorite types of kebabs - Seekh Kebab.
Seekh means skewer and seekh kebab translates to ‘kebab on a skewer’. According to 'Kebabopedia’ - Seekh Kebabs were originally known as Shish Kebab, these Kebabs were introduced in India by the Turkish. The Turkish word Shish, which means a “sword” or a skewer, and Kebab, i.e., “to roast”. According to popular belief, these kebabs were the result of the hunting activities of the Turkish soldiers who would take shelter in forests during the war. Sword was used as a skewer by them to roast kebabs. They were traditionally made with minced mutton/chicken, chickpea flour, cashew paste, cream, and other condiments.
This popular street food can be found all over South Asia, here is a version from a vendor in Pakistan. There are multiple versions of this kebab that are traditionally made on skewers and cooked over a grill or a tandoor. The mixture can be made out of beef, lamb, goat, combination, or chicken that is ground up and formed into cylinders on skewers and grilled.
Our version is made out of ground lamb (due to the high-fat content) and fatty ground beef. The kebabs stay together due to the grated onions having the moisture squeezed out.
In England, the seekh kebabs are served in a naan, some salad, and raita (yogurt with mint or cilantro) as a Kebab Roll! My absolute favorite!
You can make simple raita using yogurt mixed with mint sauce!
Servings: 25 Kebabs
Recipe Category: Lunch, Dinner, Snack
Difficulty Level: Medium
Cooking Time: 30 minutes (not including marination time, minimum 2 hours)
Pin It!What you’ll need
For the Kebabs
3 lb lamb keema
2 lb lean beef keema
3 medium onions grated
5 tsp salt
5 tsp ground garlic
5 tsp ground ginger
4 tsp coriander powder
4 tsp cumin powder
4 tsp ground nutmeg
3 tsp cardamom powder
4 tbs finely cut cilantro
3 tbs finely cut mint
10 thinly sliced green chillis
Optional: 4 tsp gram flour (besan) if needed
For the Raita
Mint sauce
Yoghurt
INSTRUCtions
Kebab
Grate onions and squeeze out the extra water using a cheesecloth (very important)
Make sure you take out all the extra moisture from the onions
Mix together all the ingredients from the list above
Leave to marinate for a minimum of 2 hours, preferably overnight.
If the mixture is too watery, add in the gram flour until the mixture firms up
When it is time to make the kebabs, make sure you wet your hands with cold water
Put the kebabs on metal skewers and flatten across (so there are ridges on the kebab)
You can then bake them in the oven (balance skewers across the pan, to catch the fat) at 450 degrees for 20-25 minutes
Or you can cook them on the grill or cook them in the tandoor as I did!
Prepare the Raita
Mix together the yogurt and mint sauce
