Lamb Kebabs
The traditional shish kabob, the lamb kabob, is a great spring dish, or any time you get a hankering for lamb. Hankering? When was the last time I got to use that term? This dish uses a great marinade to add some good flavor to the lamb. And we throw in a Greek yogurt sauce recipe for free, because what is a lamb kabob without yogurt sauce?
Note that you should allow 4 to 6 hours to marinade the lamb prior to grilling.
Ingredients
- 3lbs boneless leg of lamb, trimmed of fat and cut into 1 to 1 1/2 inch cubes
- 1 or 2 green peppers, depending on how much you like green peppers
- 4 plum tomatoes
- 1 large red onion
For the marinade:
- 1 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup minced onion
- 5 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
For yogurt sauce:
- 1 cup Greek yogurt
- 1/2 cucumber
- 2 tbsp minced onion
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp minced garlic
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- If you are using wood skewers, to soak them for about 20 minutes before skewering (or is that "kabobing"?).
- Mix the ingredients for the marinade.
- Skewer the meat and veggies, alternating the different ingredients. I prefer to start and end with meat on the skewers. Veggies tend to shrink away from the skewers during cooking, while meat tends to tighten up on the skewers, keeping the other ingredients in place.
- Put the skewered ingredients in a large glass or pyrex baking dish or a heavy duty zipper plastic bags (freezer bags). If you use bags, make sure you don't poke any holes with the skewers. Set aside about 1/3 of a cup of the marinade to use for basting. Cover and refrigerate this 1/3 cup marinade until ready to grill. Pour the rest of the marinade over the skewers. Cover (or zip) and refrigerate for 4 to 6 hours. Turn the kabobs in the marinade or spoon the marinade over the skewers a few times to ensure the kabobs gets lots of flavor.
- 1/2 hour before grilling, remove the lamb kabobs from the refrigerator to let them come up to room temperature before grilling.
- Grill over direct high heat, about 2 minutes per side. Baste frequently with the reserve marinade. Be careful not to overcook. Lamb is best served medium rare.
- You can use the kabobs in a gyro (pronounced ˈyē-ˌrō), or just by themselves. If you want a gyro, just throw them on a pita and add some yogurt sauce (which is called tzatziki, pronounced...well, I'm not sure how to pronounce it...I think it's zet-ziki).
- Grate the cucumber on a cheese grater. Use a clean dish towel or a very strong paper towel to wrap up the cucumber and twist and squeeze to remove the moisture. Add the ingredients and mix. It's that easy, but OH SO GOOD. Hmm, I wonder if you can do flaming cheese on a grill? OPA!
I wanted to make these after having them at a Greek restaurant. They turned out great. Thanks!