Big flavors for busy nights
The ready-to-cook kebabs you find at the supermarket are designed to draw a shopper’s eye with their colorful chunks of vegetables and proteins, but cooks with skewering savoir faire know that when same-ingredient items populate each metal or bamboo rod, there’s a better chance those foods will cook evenly.
That principle applies to this recipe, as it follows pretty closely to the playbook of shaping the portions of spiced, oniony ground meat on a stick, also known as “koftas.” Ground turkey fills in for the typical ground lamb; in testing with lightand dark-meat turkey, we found the latter had a slight edge in flavor and juiciness. If you want to use lean ground lamb, grass-fed ground beef or ground chicken instead, go for it.
Speaking of juicy, the addition of grated squash adds moisture and helps bind the mixture together. And you can drizzle your cooked kebabs with tahini sauce, which takes no more than a minute or two to assemble.
When you grill the kebabs outdoors and have room on the grate, cut up the rest of your zucchini or yellow squash as well as singleskewer amounts of any or all of the following: bell peppers, mushrooms, red onion, eggplant and par-cooked potato. (Be sure to season the lot and drizzle them with olive oil.)
Or simply thread on some small tomatoes, with sprigs of fresh rosemary between them. The vegetables will round out this meal, or they’ll be at the ready for your nextday lunch or dinner.
Time:
Adapted from EatingWell.com.
pound ground turkey, preferably dark meat (may substitute ground lamb, grass-fed beef or chicken) teaspoon kosher salt 1. Combine 2. Prepare 3. Add the ground turkey, 1 teaspoon of the za’atar, teaspoon of the salt, teaspoon of the ground cumin and all the cardamom to the mixing bowl. Use your clean hands to gently mix it all together until evenly blended.
4. Dampen