Çöp şiş takes its name from its skewer: a thin wooden stick. The meat is cut to match, the size of a hazelnut. Cut larger it snaps the stick and the outside burns before the inside cooks. The marinade has either milk or onion juice in it; both tenderise the meat, but using both together makes it fall apart.
Ingredients
For the meat
While cooking
To serve
Method
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Cut the meat
Trim the leg of lamb of fat and membrane and cut it into hazelnut-sized cubes.
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Marinate
Mix with the onion juice, milk, olive oil, pepper and oregano. Add no salt.
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Leave it
Chill for at least 2.5 hours, overnight if you can.
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Prepare the skewers
Soak the wooden skewers for 20 minutes or they burn over the fire.
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Thread
Thread 5 or 6 cubes onto each skewer, close together but not pressed.
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Salt
Scatter salt over them just before cooking.
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Cook
Cook on a hot grill or in a cast iron pan for 10 minutes in total, turning often. Small cubes cook fast.
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Serve
Slide them onto warmed flatbread and serve with sumac onion and charred peppers.
Tips
- Do not put salt in the marinade; meat sitting salted for two and a half hours loses its juice.
- Do not use much of both the milk and the onion juice, or the meat falls apart and drops off the skewer.
- Keep the cubes no bigger than a hazelnut. That is the only thing separating çöp şiş from kuşbaşı.
- You can wrap the exposed ends of the skewers in foil so they do not burn at the edge of the grill.
Nutrition
Values are per serving and approximate.