Lamb Kofte Kebabs

Another easy one for the BBQ, if you can be faffed using a food processor. I confess to overcooking these a little, but they were still pretty juicy and spicy. Lovely with cooling yogurt & mint and a quick pickle or tomato salad. Serves 8, if accompanied by sausages or something else too.

• A dozen wooden skewers, or metal ones

• 1kg lamb, 2-3cm dice – a tasty cut with some fat – I used neck filet, but shoulder would have been ideal too
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• small handful of thyme, soft stalks are fine, but pick leaves off any woody ones
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 50g pine nuts

Pulse the meat, onion and other ingredients (apart from the coriander seeds and pine nuts), in the food processor. You’re after a well-blended, slightly emulsified mix, which will stick together on a skewer – so using minced lamb wouldn’t avoid getting the food processor out of the back of the cupboard. Once you have a sticky mixture, pulse in the coriander seeds and pine nuts. These are for some contrasting texture, so go easy with the blending at this point. If you can make the mixture in advance, put in the fridge for a few hours; patience ensures better flavour and more tender kebabs, thanks to the salt, but I’ll leave the science to another blog post.

Soak the skewers for half an hour or so in water, so they won’t set on fire when you grill the kebabs. I do this when I light the charcoal, but you’ll have to do it earlier if you use a gas BBQ.

Make the kebabs with your hands. You’re aiming for around ten kebabs, squishing handfuls of meat into flattened sausage shapes around a skewer. Hard to give instructions for this really, so use the finished photo as a guide.

Cook over high heat to get some good colour and retain a moist inside. No need to use oil, as there’s plenty of fat in the kebabs. They shouldn’t stick to the BBQ grill once the heat has formed a nice crust underneath, so long as you resist trying to turn them more than once. As with all meat, better if you let rest for a few minutes before serving, but not in a still hot oven as I did…