The enduring appeal of the kebab

Photographs Gareth Sambidge
Food stylist Rebecca Rauter

Whether wrapped in warm bread or piled on to a plate with herbs and sauces, kebabs exist in some form in almost every culture. They transcend class and geography. They can be found sizzling on roadside grills from Istanbul to Islamabad, and yet also appear plated in white-tablecloth restaurants across the world. They are as much a part of everyday eating as they are of celebratory feasting.

For me, kebabs will always carry the taste of my heritage, not just in Birmingham but in Iran, too, where dining out is synonymous with eating kebabs. Yet it is the kebabs that were made at the family home, a small farm near the Caspian Sea, that I cherished the most. My uncles setting up a makeshift grill to cook chicken marinated in yoghurt, lemon and saffron, and tending to them with a seriousness usually reserved for high art. The smoke curled into the night air while my cousins and I waited impatiently, flatbreads at the ready. It wasn’t just about the food – though it was always mouthwateringly delicious – but about the ritual, the anticipation, the laughter, the passing of skewers from grill to plate to outstretched hands.

In Britain, kebabs carry a ritual with a different reputation, bound up with the rhythms of nightlife and the chaos of the high street at closing time. The image of the greasy doner, meat shaved into a pitta and eaten half-asleep after the pub, has become part of our national shorthand, cementing kebabs as a food that cuts across age, race and class. At 3am outside a fluorescently lit takeaway, everyone is equal in their hunger and salt-smeared fingers.

Kebabs are not just one dish, but a whole genre with many stories, a culinary language with thousands of dialects. From the cumin and chilli-spiced seekh kebabs of Pakistan, to the sweet, juicy chicken yakitori of Japan; the fiery, nutty, suya of Nigeria; the lemon-drenched cubes of sea bass on Turkey’s Aegean coast; and the allspice and cinnamon-spiked kofta of Palestine, all over the world, kebabs contribute to people’s national identity. Part of their power lies in their simplicity. A kebab requires little more than a fire, a skewer and some meat to make. That elemental quality is perhaps why it has endured across millennia and why it still feels primal and comforting to gather around an open grill. Yet within that simplicity lies endless creativity. The choice of marinade, the type of carb you choose to accompany it, and the sauces on the side are all expressions of place and personality.

And then there’s the intimacy of eating them. Unlike a plated dish, kebabs are often eaten with the hands. You tear, dip, wrap, and share. They demand interaction and conversation and they are best eaten freshly made, passed across the table. They collapse the distance between people, as food so often does, and that, I think, is why kebabs have such staying power. They’re not just tasty, they’re connective, and remind us that food at its best isn’t about refinement or prestige, but about togetherness.

Yasmin Khan is the author of Sabzi: Fresh Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day, published by Bloomsbury at £26. Order a copy at observershop.co.uk for £23.40

Selin Kiazam: Chef, author and executive chef at Leydi

When I opened my last restaurant, Oklav in Shoreditch, I knew I had to have a Şeftali kebab on the menu, and even after we’d opened I spent a long time tweaking it until I was really happy with it. The Şeftali kebab is the national kebab of Cyprus. It’s a simple dish, but it’s something that takes perfecting over time. First, you make a lamb or beef kofte mix – I like to use good quality, fatty beef mince – with onions and parsley and a few spices, but nothing too heavy. You use caul fat to wrap the mix into sausages, and then you grill the sausages over gentle coals – you don’t want the coals too fierce because they’ll quickly catch fire. We eat Şeftali with pitta bread, an onion salad and lots of lemon. They’re fatty, smoky and juicy – the kind of kebab we grew up eating at family barbecues and when we’d visit Cyprus, of course.

When I developed my own version, there were many different elements to consider. From where do we source the right just-fatty-enough meat? Do we chop the onions and the parsley? What is the right spice level? We were trying to achieve something caramelised and smoky, but still juicy in the middle, and traditional. When I’m trying to cook something traditional I don’t mess around with it. I want it to be the perfect version.

Helen Graham: Chef, writer and former executive chef at Bubala

The oyster mushroom skewer at Bubala was an amazing entry point for a lot of people when it came to veggie kebabs. We had a lot of meat-eaters coming to Bubala and they would come back for the veggie kebabs alone. The marinade was simple: oil, soy sauce, agave syrup, garlic and coriander seeds. The reason why that skewer works is because it has the perfect balance of fat, umami and sweetness, and when that hits fire, it’s quite special – like alchemy, I guess.

The skewers were the first menu item at Bubala. I played around a lot with the type of mushrooms – it started with shiitake, which are spongy. One day, the suppliers incorrectly delivered oyster mushrooms instead, and we said, “Oh, we’ll just try it with these anyway!” It was incredible. The first time we served them, people went crazy. It was a basement kitchen. The servers were coming down and telling us, “People are losing their minds for these!” Often, the things that you try and really work on have a different impact than the dishes that involve a “Eureka!” moment.

For a veggie kebab, you’re looking for a high caramelisation and crispness, so the marinades I use have a lot of sugar in them, which encourages charring. And you’ll balance that with something deeply savoury in the marinade, like soy sauce. I feel like cooking vegetables and treating them as you would a piece of meat or fish isn’t really something people do and they’re seen as something lesser. I just want to show that with a little bit of thoughtful cooking, they can be exciting and shine just as much. It’s simply a shift in thinking.

Sat Bains: Chef and owner of Restaurant Sat Bains

My dad used to own a newsagent and next door was a Greek chippy. They served doner kebabs on a wheel, but they’d close on a Sunday and we’d go with them to Markeaton Park in Derby, where they’d make kebabs just for the family, the kind they never sold in the shop – chunks of lamb, olive oil, lemon, cooked over a mobile charcoal pit. They were bringing some of their Greek heritage to Derby and the tastes were different to what I was used to. We’d had curries growing up; my parents are from the Punjab. I was used to spices, but not this cleaner taste. We were very fortunate to have very multicultural surroundings.

One of the best kebabs I’ve ever had was in Athens in 2016. It involved the intestines of the lamb – a famous dish. They roll them around this spike and slowly turn it over charcoal. It was some of the most intensely flavoured meat I’ve ever had. When I cook kebabs now, I combine minced lamb with fresh ginger and garlic, loads of spices, a pinch of salt. Then I make four balls and I press them between two pieces of paper and beat them with the back of a pan. It’s the thinnest kebab, cooked on a barbecue for four minutes, served with a nice bit of charred flatbread, some yoghurt with coriander and cumin, and then some salad. Hot, cold, cool, spicy. It’s the perfect package. We do them at home and for staff dinner.

Erchen Chang: Chef, creative director and co-founder of Bao

It’s not just the food at Zübeyir Ocakbaşı in Istanbul that sticks in my mind – it’s the whole theatre and performance, too. I went in February this year. We had only just arrived in Istanbul and headed there from the plane. It was cold outside, but when we arrived they sat us next to the grill. The chef was sitting on a massive office swivel chair, ordering people around. He was so chilled, but theatrical, too – he had two huge wooden boards in front of him and he was literally chopping the raw meat, and even the herbs, which he’d be cutting as the dishes went out. It wasn’t all prepped, like at most places. He was just cooking away, portion by portion.

The grill is raised from the table a little bit, so for the people sitting right across the grill, he’d just push the plate towards them. We were mesmerised by it: two piles of coals, one that was really hot and another that was cooler – a chef with a huge level of skill. I remember drinking cold beer, being faced with really hot air.

I had a mixed grill: chicken wings, lamb shish, adana kebab, flatbread, with ezme and baba ganoush. When you work in the restaurant industry, you tend to crave something pure, nothing too fancy. I think that’s why we loved it. If you ever go to Istanbul, this is where you should go first.

Sebby Holmes: Chef and owner of Farang

Chatuchak Market in Bangkok is one of the largest marketplaces in Thailand, miles and miles of food, shopping, groceries, T-shirts, whatever you want. As you walk along, you’ll see someone set up a little charcoal grill and meat on sticks, going for it. You’ll have no idea how they’re doing it. I’ve seen someone with a wok on top of a butane gas bottle.

They don’t call them kebabs in Thailand, they’re all grilled skewers like moo ping (grilled pork) or gai yang (grilled chicken), but they essentially are kebabs. In Bangkok, these are street food snacks and there are endless places to get them. There are some places where you sit down and eat various meats and fish on skewers. You then keep your sticks and that’s how you pay – they count your sticks. The stereotypical smell as soon as you step into any area around Bangkok with street food is that smell of caramelised sugar on wood or charcoal.

With moo ping, you take the pork neck, slice it thinly, separate the fat from the meat and then layer the fat with the meat on a stick, so as it renders it becomes very tasty. At Farang, we serve roti with moo ping and gai yang. When you take that Thai cooking technique and combine it with the great meat and fish we have access to via the restaurant, you get something amazing. It’s that sweet, salty, sour, spicy combination.

Asma Khan: Author and owner of Darjeeling Express

The kebab I’ve always loved and struggled to write the recipe for is an Afghan dish called chapli kebab. It’s a soft, crumbly kebab that is very moist, with a bit of tang because there are crushed pomegranate seeds in it. It’s meaty, but somehow also very light as it has chopped onions and tomatoes in it. I think it’s one of the best kebabs from our part of the world.

This is a kebab that is sold on the streets in Afghanistan, through Pakistan and in certain parts of India. But in my family it has always been a feature at weddings. Our weddings involve 2,000 to 5,000 guests. There’s biryani, of course, but the primary dish is the kebab, cooked outdoors on long lines of smoking charcoal and wood grills: fish, chicken, an entire goat cooked on a spit.

No one makes chapli at home. Traditionally, chefs would come in to cook it for you over smoke. Even though my aunts told me how to make it, I could never achieve an authentic flavour. When I moved to Cambridge in the 1990s, I made a friend whose family was Afghan and, finally, she let me in on the secret. “You have to add bone marrow,” she told me. “Without bone marrow it’s not going to work.” She was right. What I make will never be exactly the same as the kebabs made on the huge metal tawa, but we come close.

Ajay Kumar: Chef patron of Swadish by Ajay Kumar

In India, kebabs are perfect when combined with whisky or beer, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re on the roadside or in a five-star hotel. You can’t go wrong with a good-quality tikka, lamb kebab or fish kebab. In my town, we’d go to a hotel after work for lamb kebab and tandoori chicken, and they’d be a perfect end-of-the-day food with a glass of whisky. When I go back to India, I still love going to these places.

There are hundreds and hundreds of Indian kebabs that nobody knows about in the UK, simply because of the costs and labour involved, and sourcing the right ingredients. In January, I went to Lakhnau in India, a place where you get kebabs on every single street and people bring their families to eat out there.

There’s one kebab from Lakhnau that I think is really unique and special. In the 19th century, there were kebabs invented for nawabs and royal families without beef, so that they could still enjoy them. One of those kebabs is called kakori kebab, unusual because it’s made from minced lamb or mutton. The mince is so fine that there’s no grain – it’s almost like a mousse. You add cashew nuts, brown onions and spices, and then smoke it over charcoal. It melts in your mouth because it’s like a paste. Getting it right is a challenge. Just to put it together on a stick is tough – it’s so soft and fine. But it’s one of the best kebabs you’ll taste.

Kit Delamain: Chef at Circus Pizza at Panzer’s Deli

I used to think that “kebab” meant tendrils of grey meat sliced from a slowly rotating elephant leg, then smothered in a puddle of white sludge that tasted like garlic. That was before I went to Today Fresh Shawarma in Manchester.

When I first ordered a chicken shawarma from them, at 19, I was told to wait five minutes. In that time, a naan was hand-stretched and cooked in a tandoor oven, an impossibly wide column of sizzling chicken thighs was surgically carved, allowing only the most golden pieces on to the polystyrene tray below, and various colourful vegetables were layered on top (I had only ever asked for lettuce before then). Then, chilli and yoghurt sauce of a shade that only comes from hand-preparation were ladled on top. It was the best £2.50 I have ever spent. I returned frequently, and there learned that takeaways who spend money on the outside of their shops almost never spend the same amount of care on their food. That’s a maxim that has never failed me.

Thrill of the grill: Five must-visit UK kebab houses

Best for fine dining
Kebab Queen
4 Mercer Walk
London WC2H 9FA
(eatlebab.com/kebab-queen)

Best Turkish
Melissa
5-6 Station Parade
Whitchurch Lane
Edgware HA8 6RW
(melissarestaurant.co.uk/edgware)

Best Greek
Fig Tree Grill
34 The Broadway
Potters Bar EN6 2HW
(figtreegrill.co.uk)

Best shawarma
Sqew Shawarma Bar
7 Duncan Street
Leeds LS1 6DQ
(sqew.uk)

Best for a quick bite
01 Yeni Adana
25-27 Green Lanes
Newington Green
London N16 9BS