Typically I bunch any thin sliced meat (beef, lamb, pork) - I like the way bunched meat holds on to marinades/pastes and how you get variations in texture with some crunchy charred bits and more tender inner parts.
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My favorite marinade for making lamb kebabs on our kamado style grill – enough for about 4 lbs. of deboned and trimmed lamb meat:
3/4 c. olive oil
1/3 c. fresh lemon juice
1/3 c. red wine vinegar
6 large garlic cloves, minced
4 t. kosher salt
4 t. lemon zest
2 t. freshly ground black pepper
2 t. ground coriander
1 t. ground cumin
1/8 t. cayenne pepper
4 lbs. trimmed lamb meat, cut into 1-2” cubes
1/4 large onion, thinly sliced
Reserve ½ c. of the marinade for basting. Pour the rest over the lamb meat and sliced onions and marinade the meat pieces, stirring occasionally, for 12 hours. If you have it, soak some applewood chips and rosemary sprigs for smoking. Scrape off the onion before skewering. While grilling, baste the kebabs occasionally with the reserved marinade. I usually cook on an open grill with direct heat at about 400 degrees to an internal temp of 130.
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That marinade looks amazing! I will try it next week.
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I hope you love it! Please post results and let us know how it works out for you.
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I am here to share, not a delicious dish with luscious pictures, but a kitchen fail.
Last week I wanted to try a variation of vegetarian shami kababs, using up some veg crumbles and canned chickpeas. I cooked up the crumbles with appropriate masala, and lined up the ingredients to be ground on the counter: cooked crumbles, cans of chickpeas, and some toasted chickpea flour (extra binder).
I had some errands to run so I asked DH (who is solid in the kitchen) to grind all these together in the FP, form some patties (we discussed the size and the wet-the-palms hack), and place them in the fridge to firm up.
When I got back, DH had found the mixture too dry in the FP (maybe the order in which he put them in?) and added some water (ohhhhh no!!!) 
He had then formed what I will call ‘splatties’ and put them in the fridge. I will spare you the pictures, gentle reader.
We just laughed at it and I pan fried a couple of batches while he oven-baked some (he insisted at 350deg F while I recommended a higher temperature).
Both turned out not too bad, very soft and falling-apart texture, though they held together enough to fry and bake. Tasted good.
The oven took a long time (about 20 minutes per side, total 40 mins).
Some eaters preferred the oven product, some the pan product, and some couldn’t tell them apart. We ate them with TJ garlic naan and raita.
Leftovers were good too, as sandwich fillings / avocado toast toppings.
So, product was okay though the process was a riot.
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These would make great picnic fare.
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These are the chicken kebabs with toum from the current COTM, Flavors of the Sun (which will also be the August book). I used Daring vegan “chicken” for the meat, and it performed well, absorbing the flavors from the marinade. The marinade was pungent and excellent, with olive oil, parsley, garlic, salt, Aleppo pepper, smoked paprika, and black pepper. The toum, which I made but didn’t make it into the photo, is an aioli-like condiment of garlic, olive oil, lemon and salt. The kebabs were flavorful enough to stand on their own, and in the future I might go for a lighter, perhaps yogurt-based condiment instead of the toum. The kebabs were served with a pistachio pilaf and grilled zucchini with pomegranate molasses, both also from the COTM. The recipe can be found online here: https://sahadis.com/blogs/recipes-and-stories/from-flavors-of-the-sun-chicken-kebabs-with-toum
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These are the spicy beef kebabs with tzatziki from the current COTM, Flavors of the Sun. I’ll just make my life easy and quote my report from over there.
I made these using Impossible ground. One package is 12 oz, but I kept the spices about the same as in the original recipe. I omitted both the egg and the bread crumbs. Next time I would include some kind of binder, maybe a small amount of psyllium or some ground chia. The kebabs have a lot of stuff mixed in, and it makes them a bit crumbly and difficult to handle. Note the chilling times in the recipe for the kebab mix, both before and after shaping. You won’t want to skip that. As it was, while they were a bit fussy to handle, I did get them grilled without losing anything to the grates.
Your seasonings here are onion, garlic, jalapeño (I used serrano), parley, cilantro, dill, paprika, salt, black pepper, and Urfa pepper. Suffice it to say these are well-seasoned and very flavorful. I realized at the last minute that I didn’t have any cucumbers, so instead of the tzatziki called for, I improvised a sauce by mixing yogurt with some za’atar and minced preserved lemon. I have made the tzatziki from this recipe before, and it is good. Served this with okra roasted with sumac, and rice pilaf.
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MelMM: I think the vegan “meat” companies should hire you to promote their products!
Lovely reviews, plating, and pictures as always. I want to try these after reading!
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I would note that the NY Times, who have great difficulty even finding Upstate NY, tend to overcomplicate things. Also, that article is behind a paywall.
It wasn’t behind a paywall for me. Same marinade here.
I rather post a Sam Sifton recipe than a recipe that looks like it hasn’t been tested, or a recipe where it looks like someone is capitalizing on a recipe where I have to scroll through Ads.
Feel free to post your own Spiedies recipe.
I live in Canada, (although I have a dozen cousins living in Binghamton and Endicott ), and I don’t like Wishbone dressing, so I wouldn’t be making spiedies with Wishbone dressing.
I was adding it so you would see this thread- and your post would get more traffic. I was not asking for a critique, dude!
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Anyone from Binghamton could tell you that spiedie marinade must include mint.
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No criticism intended, by the way. Thank you for posting the link. I don’t know where you are in Canada, but there are many of us French Canadians here in the Binghamton area, many of whose families came here via the mill towns of northeastern Connecticut.
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My relatives in Binghamton came from Aliquippa, PA. Irish- German- English background.
This recipe has mint.
That recipe sounds good but rather a bit gentrified for Binghamton! Here spiedies are always marinated, never rubbed.
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That’s a pretty good recipe. The original spiedie was made with lamb and the classic uses pork. Many here do not recognize chicken spiedies as authentic. Personally, I come down on the side of pork.
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I made lamb tonight, based on the Serious Eats chicken spiedie marinade recipe, using garlic, lemon, white wine ( I didn’t use vinegar- my vinegar is white balsamic so it’s sweet compared to wine vinegar), fresh thyme, fresh oregano, fresh basil, fresh mint, parsley, dried bay leaf and garlic.
We liked it. It’s pretty close to my souvlaki recipe, the main difference is the addition of mint and vinegar.
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