How to make the perfect Uyghur lamb skewers – recipe | Food

One of the most welcome developments in the mind-bogglingly, gloriously diverse world of London dining options in recent years has been the proliferation of restaurants serving the food of the vast, automonous north-western Chinese region of Xinjiang, known by many of the predominantly Turkic-speaking Muslim Uyghur population as East Turkestan. As this fact suggests, Uyghur cooking has many similarities with other Turkic cuisines, including a love of lamb and mutton, and an aptitude for generously spiced kebabs so good that they’re now an “iconic street snack” in the Chinese capital, albeit some 3,000 miles east, in the time-honoured colonial fashion, and renamed as “old Beijing skewers”, according to that city’s own Maggie Zhu. (In Uyghur, they are, I believe, kawap, though I’d be glad to have that transliteration confirmed.)

Happily, however, you don’t need to go to Beitun or Beijing to enjoy them – or even to Golders Green – because they’re incredibly easy to recreate wherever you are, as long as you have access to a smoking hot grill. I declare this the summer of the skewer!

The meat

Lamb, obviously, though Zhu, who is now based in the curiously lamb-ambivalent United States, tells readers of her Omnivore’s Cookbook blog that “you can serve beef alternatively or additionally if some of your guests do not eat lamb” (she recommends short ribs). But you probably didn’t click on this recipe for beef, and you have two principal options when it comes to lamb: either, as Zhu and others recommend, a well-marbled cut such as breast, shoulder or neck, or a lean cut such as leg or rump, interspersed with small chunks of lamb fat, which can often be taken from the top of the cut itself.

Having tried all of these options in recipes by Helen Graves, Helen and Lisa Tse, Jason Wang and Anna Ansari, I can confirm that almost all of them would be good choices, not least because lamb is more forgiving than a meat that requires cooking through, though the breast is a little chewier than all my testers enjoy. My personal preference, however, is the rump recommended by Graves in her barbecue book Live Fire – she describes the chunks of fat, which, as she observes, become rather less appealing after a few minutes’ cooling, attached as “an aid to cooking, rather than a large part of the eating experience”, while Ansari instructs readers not to “discard the chunks of fat attached to your meat – you’ll want those to tenderise the lamb on your skewer and, if you’re like me, to eat as well”. I’ll leave that particular debate up to you.

If you prefer your meat well done, cut it into the small 1½cm cubes recommended by Zhu, but all my testers voted for the slightly larger and juicier pieces on Wei Guo of Red House Spice and restaurateur Wang’s skewers: about 2½cm x 1½cm feels about right, with the fat sliced thinner, because, as Guo explains, “after grilling, [it] shrinks dramatically and becomes crispy”, adding, temptingly, that this “makes the skewers incredibly delicious”.

The marinade

Not everyone marinates their meat – Graves just tosses it in a spice mix just before grilling – but all the other recipes recommend giving it between 30 minutes (Zhu) and up to a full 24 hours (the Tse sisters in their book A Chinese Street Food Odyssey, though, to be fair, this is their suggested upper limit). My testers and I find it too salty after so long, and the sweet spot seems to me to be from 30 minutes to two hours (roughly, a few minutes either way won’t spoil the dish).

I try marinades that range from Graves’s dry rub of ground cumin, salt and chilli flakes to Wang’s mix of Shaoxing cooking wine, white pepper, Sichuan pepper, spring and red onion, and ginger, and the Tses’ sweeter, more aromatic version that features nutmeg, ground ginger, coriander and garlic. The sisters, like Zhu, also include soy sauce as well as salt.

First things first, the results in all cases are exceptionally tasty – how could chargrilled lamb fail to be? – but the more complex marinades seem to me to obscure the most important, characteristically Uyghur flavours of roasted cumin and chilli, which are generally added during cooking. Hence, like Guo, I’m going to stick to marinating the meat with onion – which, depending on your sheep, either “helps to reduce the gamey flavour of the lamb” or contributes a pleasant savoury heat – and salt, to season it more deeply than one can do with a paltry sprinkle during the cooking.

The seasoning

Sprinkle one must, however – the Tses use the same marinade mixture for this purpose, but everyone else goes for a dry spice blend, usually involving cumin, chilli and salt. (As the meat has already been salted, I’ve left the last out.) It seems wise, as many of the recipes dictate, to brown the meat before adding the ground spices, to reduce the chances of burning them on the grill, and Zhu sensibly recommends at this point moving the skewers to a lower heat (make sure, too, that your grill isn’t too close to the coals, or the dripping fat will cause a flare-up! I write from experience).

In his Xi’An Famous Foods book, Wang finishes the skewers with sesame seeds “for the crunch”, and notes that, “if you have whole cumin seeds lying around, feel free to add those in addition to the ground cumin (you can never have too much, in my opinion)”. In fact, I prefer the latter, and I’m also going to add a pinch of Graves’s chilli flakes for the same reason – though, depending on the strength of your original chilli powder and your tolerance for heat, you might swerve these – and the Sichuan peppercorns whose tingly heat my testers and I so enjoy in Zhu, Ansari and Wang’s recipes.

The cooking

This is one to get the barbecue out for – it will also work on a smoking-hot griddle pan, but you run a greater risk of burning the spice rub. Guo, who clearly has the heat tolerance of a street vendor, directs readers to hold the skewers in their hands, dabbing and rubbing them against each other to “help the oil generated from the fat to flow on to the lean meat”. I don’t find the meat I use requires this, but if yours is very lean, you might like to give it a go.

To serve

With flatbreads, preferably warmed in the lamb fat, and chopped salads, or simply as they are. Zhu explains that, “when summer comes, locals crowd the streets of Beijing. They sit outdoors, wearing T-shirts and flip-flops, snacking on lamb skewers and drinking cold beer.” Sounds good to me.

Perfect Uyghur lamb skewers

Prep 10 min
Marinate 40 min+
Cook 30 min
Serves 2 (easily scaled up or down)

400g lamb rump or leg, preferably with a thick cap of fat (if not, ask the butcher for some separately)
½ onion, peeled
½ tsp fine salt
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp mild-medium chilli powder
½ tsp coarsely ground Sichuan peppercorns
½ tsp chilli flakes (optional)