Tag Archives: Turkish lamb recipe

Sizzling Turkish Lamb and Eggplant Kebabs

Posted on by 7 comments
Lamb meatballs interspersed with big chunks of eggplant turn delightfully smoky on the grill.
Lamb meatballs interspersed with big chunks of eggplant turn delightfully smoky on the grill.

Husband-and-wife chefs Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer like to play with fire.

And the after-effects are sure to make your mouth-water.

After honing their craft at Yotam Ottolenghi’s acclaimed London restaurants, the couple opened the popular Israeli-influenced cafe, Honey & Co. in London, in 2012. That was followed in short succession by Honey & Smoke, and the Honey & Spice deli.

Their first cookbook, “Honey & Co: At Home: Middle Eastern Recipes From Our Kitchen” (Pavilion) was named “Cookbook of the Year” in 2015 by The Sunday Times in the United Kingdom.

Now comes their follow-up, “Honey & Co: Chasing Smoke: Cooking Over Fire Around the Levant” (Pavilion), of which I received a review copy.

As the title implies, this book is all about grilling, smoking and imparting coveted char in dishes. Join Packer and Srulovich as they take you on a journey to discover the most delicious live-fire-cooking through Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, and Greece. Photographs of market stalls, desert landscapes, seashores, and all manner of blazing grills transport you to these evocative places. So much so, that you’ll swear you can feel the heat and smell the smoke right off the pages.

Read more

Bruce Aidells Part I: Turkish Lamb Shoulder Plus A Food Gal Giveaway

Posted on by 5 comments

A lamb dish strewn with pretty pomegranate seeds for the holidays.

If there’s one cookbook that I always recommend homecooks have on their shelf, it’s “The Complete Meat Cookbook” by the Bay Area’s meat expert, Bruce Aidells.

I’ve cooked numerous recipes out of it. I’ve also referred to it countless times for information on meat cooking times and the differences between various cuts. It’s a carnivore’s best one-stop resource.

So, I was counting the days for Aidells’ new version, “The Great Meat Cookbook” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), to be published.

It’s been more than a decade since Aidells, the founder and former owner of Aidells Sausage Company, wrote that first book. The new meat book is even more comprehensive. It’s updated with information on the “grass-fed” label, heirloom pork varieties, and includes recipes for not only lamb, beef, veal and pork, but bison and goat. What’s more, there are hundreds of handy-dandy color illustrations of just about every cut of meat you can think of, making it easier to pick them out at the grocery store.

The recipes span all-American comfort to global-inflected dishes. When I received my review copy of the book, it was the recipe for “Turkish Pomegranate-Glazed Lamb Shoulder Chops and Carrots” that caught my eye first.

First, I love lamb. Second, it’s such a pretty dish with jewel-like pomegranate seeds, pine nuts and fresh green herbs strewn over the chops.

Pomegranate seeds -- as pretty as rubies.

Third, the folks at Pom Wonderful had just sent me samples of their newest product, Pom Poms fresh pomegranate seeds or arils. Yes, they’ve eliminated the messy, stain-inducing task of digging the seeds out of a whole pomegranate. The new Pom Poms come in both 8-ounce and a 4.3-ounce sized containers. The latter even has a fold-able plastic spoon included so you can just open the container to start enjoying them.

Read more