Cookbook:Döner Kebab

Döner Kebab
Category	Meat recipes
Yield	4 lbs meat
Servings	Varies
Time	4–5 hours

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Döner kebab (döner kebap in Turkish) literally means "rotating grilled meat" (any type of meat applies). They were first developed in Bursa. Authentic Turkish döner is made with bread, salad and meat from lamb; regardless, mostly beef or a mix of beef and lamb is used in Europe. Although frozen kebab is available at convenience stores, they don't match fresh home-made kebab and may not be consistent with your taste and spicing. This article has the recipe for a complete European-style pita kebab. In Azerbaijani it is pronounced as dönər.

Ingredients

Meat

• 2 kg (4½ lb) ground beef or other minced meat
• 11–12 tsp chicken salt/season salt
• 6 tsp black pepper (amount depends on taste preference)

Sauce

Iskender-style dressing

• 2–3 dl (⅘–1¼ cups) plain yogurt
• 1–3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tsp basil
• 1–1½ tsp black and/or white pepper
• Green-, lemon-, or red pepper (optional)
• Chile pepper or powder (optional)
• Cayenne pepper (optional)
• Tabasco sauce (optional)

Tomato sauce dressing

• 1 can (70 g / 2½ oz) tomato purée
• ½–1 tsp salt
• ½–1½ tsp white pepper
• ½–1½ tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp basil
• 1 pinch oregano
• Ketchup (amount depends on preference)

Serving

• Pita bread
• Salad (see notes)
• Rice
• Chips/French fries

Procedure

Meat

1. Mix all the ingredients into a farce-like chunk.
2. Use a mixer or your hands to get air out of the chunk.
3. Optionally, make a hole in the chunk with a knife so that excess fat can drain out.
4. Wrap it tightly in aluminium foil, using more than 2 layers of foil to prevent rupture.
5. Put it into the oven and set the temperature to 100 °C (210 °F). Let it cook for 4 hours. Note that 4 hours applies even if you scale down the recipe. Let's say, if you want a 1 kg chunk (half of the original portion), you should NOT leave it for 2 hours; 4 hours apply for every size. The idea is that it gets cooked slowly.
6. When it is done, remove it from the oven, open the foil, and let it cool down. If you did everything correctly, you should be able to use a shredder or a knife to cut it in thin slices.

Sauce

1. Combine all the ingredients for the sauce(s) you are making.
2. Mix well.

Serving

There are several ways and styles to serve döner. Here are a few:

• Sandwich-style: Slice the pita bread from the middle, then layer the salad, kebab, and dressings like you would do with a hamburger.
• Reel-kebab: The roll wrap for a reel-kebab can be done using the same technique as for burritos (using pita bread).
• Kebab pizza: Simply prepare a pizza and top it with kebab.
• Kebab with rice: Fill roughly over a half of a plate with kebab, and the rest with cooked rice. Dress with ketchup or any of the sauce recipes mentioned in this article.
• Kebab with chips: Same as kebab with rice except that the rice has been replaced by chips (a.k.a French fries).

Notes, tips, and variations

• If you want, you can add other spices to the meat like chili, cayenne, garlic, BBQ sauces, etc.
• A salad consisting of tomatoes, pickles, cucumbers, and Chinese cabbage with mayonnaise is probably the most common salad eaten with kebab in Europe. There are tons of variations, of course. If you want a healthy choice, make sure you balance the cereals class (pita), meat class (kebab), and vegetable class (salad) well! You can also add chile peppers, jalapeño, red onions and such for the salad to fit your taste!