Last week, I wrote about the wonderful gift I received from another adoptive mom—a cookbook of Armenian recipes from the Ladies Aide Society. I made four recipes in one weekend. In my previous post, I described how to make the Kufteh Yaghenee (lamb ball and yogurt soup) and Fattush (vegetable salad with crisped bread chips). This week, I’m going to share the other two recipes: Shish Kebab and Taboule.

Big Papa and I are no strangers to Shish Kebab. We’ve made them using chicken; we’ve made them using lamb; we’ve made them all veggie. But we’ve never made them quite like this.

I have to say that the smell of these kebabs cooking on the grill was divine. And they tasted heavenly. It probably has something to do with the combination of tomato paste and allspice in the marinade. Or maybe it has something to do the fact that my friend Bev said, “This is the best Shish Kebab.”

I now know this much. She was right.

Shish Kebab (~6 large skewers)

• 2 lbs. lean lamb or tenderloin tips (I used a bit of both), cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
• 1/3 cup onion, chopped fine
• 1/3 cup tomato paste
• ¼ teaspoon allspice (I used a bit more)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 small eggplant, cubed (I used a combination of purple and white eggplant)
• 4 small onions, quartered

How to

Mix the meat with the onions, tomato paste, seasonings and lemon juice. Refrigerate for 2 hours (I did it for 4 hours) to tenderize and flavor the meat. Meat should be room temperature before broiling (we BBQ’d ours!).

Skewer 2 piece of meat and then 1 piece eggplant or onion. This recipe should be enough for 6 large skewers.

Preheat broiler. Arrange on the broiler rack 2 inches below heat. Broil with the door ajar until the kebabs are brown, turning on all sides. Kebabs can be broiled over a charcoal fire too, which is how we (read: Big Papa) did it. In my very biased opinion, if you have a charcoal grill, use the charcoal grill!

 

Taboule

• 1 cup fine bulgur wheat
• 1 teaspoon tomato paste
• ¼ cup water (I used boiled water)
• 4 large tomatoes, chopped
• 4 cups parsley (I used less-maybe 1 cup! 4 cups seemed like a lot to me and I usually err on the side of more herbs are better)
• 6 scallions, chopped (I used both the white part and some of the green)
• 1 medium cucumber, chopped
• 1 large sweet red or green (or both) pepper
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint chopped (I used more as I like the mint flavor)
• Salt to taste
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice or to taste (I used more)
• 5 tablespoons olive or corn oil (I always use olive)
• Romaine lettuce

Soak the bulgur and tomato paste in the water for 15 minutes. Mix the vegetables and bulgur together. Add mint, lemon juice and oil. Mix well. Serve on a bed of romaine lettuce.

Note: For this particular taboule recipe, I found that the taboule needed to sit awhile (20 minutes or so) so that the bulgur could absorb the liquid from the veggies, etc. and soften.

Want to skewer more deliciousness? Check out Wanderfood Wednesday!