Shashlik

the Soviet skewer: lamb marinated overnight in onion and vinegar, threaded with fat between the pieces, and grilled over embers with raw onion rings

Origin: The Caucasus & the Russian Empire

From the journey of Onion.

Shashlik is the Caucasus grilled on a skewer and then adopted by an empire. The word came into Russian from Crimean Tatar şışlıq, from şış, a spit, and the dish came with it: Russian officers and administrators met it in the Caucasus in the nineteenth century, took it home, and by the Soviet period it had become the standard thing cooked outdoors from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. The May holidays and the dacha season are built around it. What distinguishes shashlik from its Caucasian parent is acid. Armenian khorovats is marinated in onion, salt, and pepper and nothing else, and Armenians are firm that adding vinegar makes it something other than khorovats; shashlik is precisely that something else. Vinegar is the classic Soviet marinade, with wine, kefir, pomegranate juice, and mineral water all having their partisans, and the argument about which is correct is conducted every spring across several time zones. The onion does the work in both. It is sliced thick, salted, and squeezed by hand into the meat so its juice goes into the cuts, and it is then discarded before grilling and replaced by fresh raw rings served alongside, usually rinsed and sometimes dressed with a little vinegar and sumac. A shashlik arriving without a mound of raw onion has arrived incomplete. The threading is the practical skill. Pieces of lamb go onto flat metal skewers with a small piece of tail fat between every second or third, so the fat renders down over the lean meat as it turns; the skewers are laid across the sides of a mangal, a long narrow brazier, and turned by hand over embers rather than flame.

Ingredients

Meat

  • 1.5 kg lamb shoulder or leg, in 4cm cubes
  • 200 g lamb tail fat, in small pieces, or fatty bacon

Marinade

  • 5 large onions, thickly sliced
  • 90 ml white wine vinegar
  • 150 ml cold water
  • 2.5 tsp coarse salt
  • 2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 2 bay leaves, crumbled

To serve

  • 2 onions, in rings and rinsed, to serve
  • 1 tbsp sumac, to serve
  • 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley and coriander, to serve
  • 6 flatbreads, to serve

Method

  1. Put the meat in a large bowl with the sliced onions, salt, pepper, coriander, and bay.
  2. Work it hard with your hands for two or three minutes, squeezing the onion as you go so its juice is driven into the meat. This is the part that matters and it is done by hand.
  3. Mix the vinegar with the cold water and pour it over. Diluting the vinegar is deliberate: undiluted, it tightens the surface of the meat and gives a slightly grey, mealy texture.
  4. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or for at least six hours, turning once if you remember.
  5. Build a fire of hardwood or use charcoal and let it burn down to a deep bed of embers with no flame showing.
  6. Shake the onion off the meat and discard it; it has done its job and will only burn on the skewer.
  7. Thread the lamb onto flat metal skewers, pushing a piece of tail fat on after every second or third cube.
  8. Push the pieces close together but not crushed. Too tight and the sides steam; too loose and they dry.
  9. Lay the skewers across a mangal or across bricks over the embers and turn them every couple of minutes.
  10. Grill for twelve to eighteen minutes depending on the size of the cubes. Flare-ups from dripping fat are put out with a splash of the leftover marinade or water rather than by moving the meat.
  11. The lamb is done when it is browned all over and just pink at the centre of the largest cube.
  12. Slide the meat off the skewers onto flatbread so the bread takes the juices, and serve with rinsed raw onion rings, sumac, and herbs.

Notes

Dilute the vinegar; neat acid on lamb for twelve hours gives a firm, dry result, and this is the commonest fault. Work the onion into the meat with your hands rather than merely mixing, then throw it away before grilling. Tail fat between the pieces is what bastes the lean meat and is sold by halal and Central Asian butchers; fatty bacon is a fair stand-in. Embers, not flames. The rinsed raw onion served alongside is part of the dish. Shoulder is more forgiving than leg over a fierce heat.

The Gastrographer

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