Indian turkey kebabs

The sun decided to show its face today and so the opportunity for a BBQ could not be missed. L&C kindly hosted the afternoon. K made lovely beef burgers and I made turkey kebabs based on the work of the doyen of the Indian kitchen, Madhur Jaffrey. They went down so well that everyone wanted the recipe (and hence the idea for this blog was born).

Firstly, a comment on kebabs. They are not necessarily cooked on skewers and there are a number of great kebabs that are meat patties. I might look into where the word "kebab" comes from one day. But for present purposes I just wanted to point out that some kebabs, and these included, come in patty form. The best example being the chappli kebab of the Pakistani North West Frontier - some fond memories there of eating fresh chappli kebabs made at the roadside and eaten with a freshly cooked nan bread. A great idea that - if you place the kebab in the centre of the nan, pieces can then be torn off the bread to use to eat the kebab which diminishes in size as the bread shrinks until you are left with the last mouthful (and the last few bites have the yummy juices soaked into the bread). Essentially the nan is part of the meal but also doubles as an edible plate! I digress...

The kebabs, take about 500g of turkey mince and combine with finely chopped chilli to taste 3-4 crushed garlic cloves, a good tablespoon of minced ginger, 1/4 teaspoon (or more if brave) cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, 2-4 tablespoons of chopped fresh corriander (or I actually use parsley as I am more likely to have this to hand), 3/4 teaspoon of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. The recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of yoghurt strained through muslin for a couple of hours but you can easily cheat and add 3-4 tablespoons of greek yoghurt as this is basically just strained yoghurt. To be true to Mrs J you should also add a tablespoon of chickpea flour that you have lightly roasted in a pan. However, I don't usually have this or the time and cornflour works a treat and you don't lose much on the flavour with everything else going on. Mix it all together and leave in the fridge for a good few hours, up to a day. Shape into patties and grill/fry.

A small variation, leaning towards my lazy side and being in a bit of a rush is to place the yoghurt (after straining if not using Greek) in a mini-blender with the roughly chopped chilli, ginger and garlic and then whizz to a fine paste. This saves the grating/chopping and gets the flavours into the meat quicker.