Lamb Kebabs

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 12 oz diced leg of lamb (all visible fat removed), cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• ¼ Cup of mixed pinenuts, pistachios and apricots
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ tsp paprika
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• ½ tsp runny honey
• 1 large garlic clove
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• For the salad
  • 2 cups shredded iceberg lettuce
  • 1 cup shredded purple cabbage
  • 4 tomatoes, sliced thinly
• For the sauce:
  • needs a splash tabasco or 2 tsp. Fresh lemon juice
  • 4 heaped Tbsp low fat Greek yogurt
  • 2 Tbsp heaped mayonnaise
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
• Optional extra flavours:
  • Finely chopped parsley instead of oregano
  • Chilli or Tabasco sauce, to taste

Method:

1. Soak 8 bamboo skewers in cold water (they must be completely covered).
2. Inn a food processor add the garlic with the salt, pinenuts, pistachios, & apricots. Once it has turned to paste, add the ground cumin, coriander, turmeric and paprika before pounding it again to mix thoroughly.
3. Transfer into a medium sized mixing bowl and add the lemon juice, olive oil, honey and tomato paste. Mix it together with a spoon.
4. Add the diced lamb to this paste and give it a good stir to coat the meat completely. Cover in cling film and leave to marinate for between 20 minutes and 2 hours, depending on how much time you have. The longer you leave it, the more flavour the lamb will acquire.
5. Whilst the meat is marinating, make the salad and the dressing.
6. Toss together the shredded cabbage, lettuce, and onion. Add the chopped herbs and set aside.
7. Make the sauce by mixing together the yogurt, with the mayonnaise and minced garlic.
8. Once the meat has been marinating for as long as you can afford to leave it, drain the bamboo skewers from their bath and pat dry. Thread 4 pieces of lamb onto each bamboo stick.
9. Heat up your chargrill so that it is hot, but not smoking. Carefully cook the meat on the sticks for 2-3 for rare meat-4 minutes on each of its 4 sides, turning them carefully as the pan will be hot. It is important to adjust the heat under the chargrill pan so that you get lovely griddled marks that will taste smoky and delicious, but not so hot that you burn the honey and the garlic in the marinade (which would turn bitter).
10. Once the meat is all cooked, leave it to rest for 5 minutes under tin foil. Whilst the meat is resting, put the pita bread into the toaster for a minute or two. This will puff the pita out without actually toasting it. Once puffed up, cut along one side with a pair of scissors and open the hot pita pocket up. Repeat this step with all of the pitas that you plan on using.
11. Spread a couple of tablespoons of the yogurt and garlic mayonnaise mix into each of the pitas. Add the cooked meat from one or two skewers by easing them off the sticks with the help of a fork. Finally, add a good handful of salad and a couple of tomatoes.

Tips:

• You could just as easily leave out the pita if you preferred eating the lamb kebabs straight from the sticks. If this is the case, simply toss the salad in the garlic mayonnaise mixture to coat it and serve this alongside the kebab sticks on the plate.
• It’s up to you to choose what flavours you wanted to add to this recipe in terms of both the marinade mixture and the salad flavours. It would be nice to add a little chilli to the marinade for example and some swap the lettuce for grated carrot.