Saturday 25 June 2016

Donner Kebab Saturday Night Fake-Away

Donner kebabs are a bit marmitey - you either love them or hate them, but even if you love them (which I'm not ashamed to say I do) you still don't really want to know, or think about what's inside them.

This week, hubz and I are back on to our healthy 'conscious eating' streak but this  conciousness didn't help ease our kebab cravings this week! We held strong and vowed to make our own - saving us calories and money! What's more, this version was unsurprisingly tastier and juicer too so what's stopping you giving it a bash this Saturday night?

The kebab consists of 3 parts - lamb koftas, kebab shop style sauce and salad.

Lamb Koftas
Take half a kilogram of lamb mince (Scotch of course!) and mix this with 1tbsp of dried garlic, 1tbsp of cumin, 1tspn of salt, 1 tspn of pepper, 1tspn of smoked paprika and one egg. Then be prepared to get messy by using your hands to 'squelch' everything together and roll into 3 inch long, thick 'sausages'. I usually don't mind getting messy but I would recommend gloves this time round as lamb is quite a fatty meat and so the fat is pretty stubborn and resistant to soap when washing after! Cook these koftas at 180 degrees fan for around 20mins or until hot in the middle.

Kebab Shop Style Sauce
For tradition red kebab sauce, mix tomato ketchup, mint sauce, lemon juice, a pinch of cayenne pepper and salt to taste. For the creamier white sauce (this is usually a diluted garlic dip in the shops but I opted for a mint yoghurt for mine) combine yoghurt, lemon juice, finely chopped mint leaves and a pinch of ground black pepper to taste then mix. These are both now ready for drizzling into your warmed pittas!

Salad
Simply cut white cabbage very thinly, as well as red onion, and dice cucumber and tomatoes (without seeds). This avoids a very soggy kebab as most of their water is contained here, and when all mixed together gives a very crisp and crunchy bite to your meal.

Finally, to serve your kebab layer salad, sauce, kofta, salad and sauce into your warms pitta pockets. (If you wanted an ever more authentic taste you could char the pitta pocket over one of your gas hobs before stuffing...) just be careful though, and please use tongs.

Happy fake-away! x