On the heat. Mild — no chilli at all

Ingredients

• 800 g lamb mince, regular
• 200 g lamb tail fat, minced in
• 2 onions, grated and squeezed bone dry
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp turmeric · 2 tsp salt · black pepper
• Pinch saffron in 2 tbsp hot water
• — TO SERVE
• Basmati chelow, buttered, with saffron rice on top
• Grilled tomatoes · sumac · butter · raw egg yolk (traditional)
• Wide flat skewers, 3 cm across

Method

1. Squeeze the grated onion in a cloth until absolutely no liquid comes out. This is the whole recipe. Wet onion means koobideh in the fire.
2. Mix everything and knead eight to ten minutes — longer than any other kebab in this book — until the mixture is smooth, pale and tacky enough to pull in strings.
3. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour.
4. Wet your hands. Press a fistful onto a wide flat skewer, then press a channel down the length with your fingers at 2 cm intervals. The ridges lock it on.
5. Very hot coals, skewers on the rails so the meat hangs clear. Do not touch it for 90 seconds. Then turn continuously for four minutes.
6. Slide off onto flatbread. Buttered saffron rice, grilled tomato, sumac. Nothing else, ever.

Cook's note. The three failures are wet onion, insufficient kneading, and warm meat. Get all three right and you can hold the skewer vertically without it moving.

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