How This Viral Kebab Recipe Unlocked a Core Memory

[00:02] generally despise the concept of viral recipes. But the most recent one has unlocked a core memory of mine, something I've tried to recreate for 20 years, [music] and that is the Turkish kebabs I

[00:15] survived off of 20 years ago in Florence of all places. Particularly one across Yummy Yummy. Beef and lamb cooked on a vertical spit, sliced thin, topped with hot sauce, white sauce, and French fries

[00:30] burrito. It's one of my favorite things to [music] eat even in Florence with all the amazing food they have. And this viral technique to making it at home quite easily is the secret to bringing it into my home kitchen [music] whenever

[00:43] I want. This is how to make a Turkish kebab from Florence. Now, one of the things I loved about it, it wasn't in a pa, it wasn't in bread. It was wrapped in this flatbread sort of thing, a lavas bread. Kind of like a blend between a pa

[00:57] and a tortilla. It's a simple bread. Very easy to make. Starts with 500 g of allpurpose flour in a bowl. I've got some instant yeast. I just need a teaspoon of that. Teaspoon of sugar, teaspoon of salt. Then I'm going to add

[01:11] teaspoon of salt. Then I'm going to add in 300 ml of warm around 100°ree water or it's about a cup and a half of water. Then I'm just going to use a spatula and just sort of push it around. Right. I want that water and the flour to sort of

[01:25] shake hands. Try and get all that flour coated in the moisture and hydrated. Once it starts to sort of look like a dough, may look dry to you, but it's not. It's just that flour hasn't fully hydrated yet. I'm just going to hit it

[01:39] with a little oil, [music] tablespoon or two. And I'm going to use my hands and going to start folding it in fast movements so that doesn't stick to my hand. Now, some people might put milk in this. I don't really hold milk that

[01:53] often, so water is fine. A little bit more oil. Now, back when I was a young and living in Florence, this was before my culinary enlightening. And while I did love all the food of Florence, this was the thing I ate every day. It was

[02:06] like €34. Came with French fries, delicious flavor, nice staff right across from my apartment. And I didn't like the hot sauce, so every time my mom sent supplies, I made her smuggle in Frank's

[02:21] Red Hot. It's the American in me. That place is not closed now, but if you do There's [music] one particular called Istanbul Kebab. It's across the street from a bar called Kikuya, which [music] was my old stock big ground. So, we're

[02:35] minutes. All that flour is absorbed. We're just going to fold it onto itself, create a ball, wrap it in a little bit of oil. The oil just kind of helps smooth it out. Right now, we're going to cover this. Let this double in size in a

[02:49] nice warm place. Now, onto the kebab itself. Now, we're merely taking the technique on cooking the kebab and treating it, but we're not seasoning it anyway. We've already made yo on this channel on a spit on the barbecue in the

[03:01] summer. Very fun recipe, incredible. Go check it out. We're going to take that base and then just apply more Turkish spices to it. But the meats we're going to use, lamb and beef, and the percentage of salt we're adding to it

[03:14] thing I want to do is just measure out my meat. We want to know exactly how much we're going to add so we know how much salt to add. So, I've got a little less than a pound of ground beef and about a half a pound of ground lamb. So,

[03:26] about a half a pound of ground lamb. So, it's 1 lb 12 oz or 800 g. So, then I'll just go to my little assistant. What is 2% of 800 gram? >> That would be 16 g. >> 16 g. We're adding 16 g of salt. So,

[03:39] that's about as far as precision we need. So, we're going to set that off to the side. Now, I've got one large onion. If it's small, you might need two. But the top off. I'm not going to split it in half. I'm going to split it almost

[03:51] in half. I'm going to split it almost into two/3. And I'm just going to cut a little piece off for garnish. And so, we'll set this aside. And we're just going to chop it. [music] It's going in the food processor. We

[04:03] just want to give it a little bit of help. To that, some garlic. Four or five cloves. And let's process that.

[04:17] starting to become a puree, but still a little bit of texture left. Now, in with the meat, the salt, and we got a bunch of spices. Going to hit it with some black pepper. Always fresh. Get yourself one of these. You're an adult now. Dried

[04:31] just eyeball it. Sumac. It's a really great Middle Eastern spice. It's almost great Middle Eastern spice. It's almost got citrusy notes with spice notes, like a citrusy chili powder in a way. Not exactly, but that's the closest way to

[04:45] describe it. About a tablespoon. 2 tepoons of garlic powder. [music] 2 tsps of onion powder. 2 tsps of coriander. 2 tsp of cumin. Teaspoon or two of paprika. And then here's the little secret. We're going to add ground

[05:00] smallest amount. I'm not a big warm spice guy and savory, but I added it just a little bit, maybe like a half of a teaspoon. And it just adds this subtlety in the background. It doesn't take it to like cinnamon land. It just

[05:14] kind of adds a good complimentary note. Then we've got some Greek yogurt. Whatever fat percent you can get, whole fat is always the best. We're just going to take a spoon, you know, [music] maybe like one 2 to 3 tablespoons. We're going

[05:26] to need this for white sauce. Now, back on. And then just let it go. You want to start to see the meat riding around the blade. See that? That movement. That's when you know you're just about there. It's nice

[05:39] and emulsified. Give it one more spin and we should be there. Now, we just want to get it into a bowl. It's not going to look incredible right now, but like this is the start of like

[05:52] a kebab, a donor. Never stick your hand in here to get this stuff out, too. Last year, I cut the out of myself. It was actually making the gyro. Now, same marinate. This can be done in the same day, but if you could start the bread

[06:06] and the meat a day ahead, then this becomes like an actually quick thing to make. Now, I turned 40 this year, and I had a conversation with myself that I differently [music] from here on out. Take control of them rather than allow

[06:20] them to control me. And it starts with a routine, a way of expressing these today, BetterHel, [music] comes in. BetterHelp makes starting therapy easier and much less intimidating for many people. And if you're like me, I haven't

[06:34] always had the best experiences [music] with therapy. To be honest, I don't like leaving my home. I don't like sitting in a waiting room, and I don't like when my appointment is always late. BetterHelp can match you to one of over 30,000

[06:46] based on your needs, preferences, and location, which gives you access to a wider range of expertise that may not be available in your city. To get started, questionnaire that will ask you questions about what challenges you're

[06:59] therapists you'd like. And BetterHelp will match you with a therapist in most cases within [music] 48 hours. And you can schedule therapy sessions at any you don't love your therapist, you can request a new therapist at no additional

[07:14] charge at [music] any time. So, to get 10% off your first month of therapy, betterhelp.com/notcooking show. Now, let's get back into the recipe. Now for the white sauce here, I've just got maybe a cup of that yogurt

[07:27] left over from the marinade or the spice mix for the meat. I'm going to go about 1 one with mayo and Greek yogurt. This ratio can be highly customizable. You yogurt. A little bit more creamy, maybe a little bit more mayo. To that, about

[07:43] two capfuls of white vinegar. Take a lemon. I'm going to cut a cheek. I'm juice flavor. You know, white vinegar adds twang to the back of the mouth. This still has a twing, but this has a bright fresh flavor. So, using both of

[07:56] them is not like weird. Now, we're going to grate in some garlic. I always like grating my garlic into sauces. Touch of garlic powder. A little sugar in the form of granulated sugar or I have some of agave. So, maybe a tablespoon or two.

[08:10] Salt. Fresh cracked black pepper. And that's kind of like where you're at in on the thickness, we might thin it out with some water. It's good as it is. But here I have toasted carowway seeds. I just toasted them in a toaster oven.

[08:25] And we're just going to grind that up. And this is just something some places add. It adds a nice sort of spicy floral going to add a little bit to that. The carowway seed does something. Sort of

[08:39] like takes it from like ranch vibes into halal cart white sauce vibes. I think we can thin that out a little bit with some water. drippy drippy but still a little thick. Now, you know, to get it into a squirt

[08:53] So, I'm going to get it into a quart container first [music] and then we can sort of squeeze the bottle to almost make a funnel. So much easier than doing it any other way. Now, our white sauce is made into

[09:08] come together. Now, as far as the onions go, that garnish that we spoke about earlier, I'm going to take my onions and I'm going to slice it orbly around the onion, following these lines, really thin. Thinner the better. Get those into

[09:23] a bowl, break them up, and we're going to sort of try and pickle these a little bit like quasi pickle. I hate when they serve these things raw or cut too big. salt's going to pull out moisture. It's going to take that stinginess out of it.

[09:38] lemon. Just going to hit it a little bit. Let that acid sort of cook the onion. Next up, I've just got these sweet cherry tomatoes. We just want to do slice them thin [music] and toss those into the onion. Then

[09:52] make sure we salt those. And then again, we're going to take some of that sumac and we're going to add that in. And then if you want to make it even more bright, you can just sort of pick these parsley leaves just sort of like the, you know,

[10:07] a nice fresh topping we're going to use to top our kebab. We made our white sauce. Now we need our red sauce, a spicy sauce. Here I have four or five red chilies and then two chili diar. You can kind of control that if you want.

[10:21] spice. The red chilies are going to just bring a vibrant red color to this. We're going to need to blend it. So, first thing I want to do is fish out the chilies that are now rehydrated. They've been sitting in simmering water until

[10:36] they've all just softened up. Can add a little bit of that liquid to that. Some lemon juice. About a cheek of lemon. Tablespoon of vinegar. A tablespoon or two of agave or honey or sugar. Remember, it's spicy, so sugar will

[10:49] balance. Then about a teaspoon of coriander, a teaspoon of cumin, a clove in. Make sure it gets nice and incorporated. Salt. And some more water.

[11:01] incorporated. Salt. And some more water. Let's see where we're at there. bit of oil. Tablespoon. Also want to add a touch more water.

[11:14] a touch more water. [music] I want to thin it out because one of the important things is we need to cook this down. [music]

[11:29] Brings out that color. It was sort of brick red before. A little bit of oil. we need to cook this down. The act of cooking it sort of brings out all the flavors and it sort of mellows out the harshness of the chilies and the raw

[11:43] garlic. So we just want to bring it up to a light simmer and just simmer it down and reduce it slightly. It is a nice consistency as is. So we just want to give it some heat. Maybe 5 10 minutes and it should be good to go. Taste just

[11:56] for seasoning. You can smell all of those chilies sort of blooming. Just smells amazing. Now, you don't want to over reduce it or make it too thick. looking for. And we're going to just allow this to cool down before we make

[12:09] adjustments. Generally, with a chili sauce, a salsa, what you taste now is not really going to be a good representation of how it tastes. As this cools and settles, the flavors are really going to bloom out. We're going

[12:22] to set this off to the side. In the time it takes to prep everything else, you're Now, this will probably roll in out evenly into about 80 g balls. I want my bread a little bit bigger. I'm just going to cut it in half. Bust out the

[12:36] scale. That's 100. So once I get my ball, I'm basically going to start to take the sides and fold them in. Pinch [music] it. And then use my hands to sort of round it into a nice ball. The sides of your hand. And you're just

[12:49] trying to close the bottom. Now that was around 100. I think 100 should be good. You're just trying to create tension to seal the bottom. So, we're going for roughly 100 g balls. You can also do 80. 80 will be a little

[13:04] bit bigger than a pa. I want to go closer to like a tortilla. These kebabs side. Eight balls you're going to get out of this. You're almost creating this like smooth exterior that's encapsulating all of the air bubbles

[13:18] inside. Almost like a balloon. I'm just going to take a sheet tray, just rub it all over. And then they're going to get just a little bit more oil on top. I'm just going to lightly cover them with some plastic and allow them to rise

[13:33] again. The second coming. Just going to set them on the back where it's nice and warm. Right now, the oven is preheating at 550°. And I've got my pizza steel in the oven preheating on the like lower part of it.

[13:47] That allows me space above it to kind of work with the bigger lavas bread. And we're going to preheat that steel until it clocks in around 500°. 550 is even

[13:59] better. Now, back to our meat so I don't get my board all gked up. We're going to take our parchment. Going to hit it with a little oil and brush that all over. Just a light coating. We're going to take some of [music] our

[14:11] pressing it out. I'm just spreading it out in an even layer at the bottom first. And then I'm going to roll it out with a rolling pin. Fold it over. Then I'm going to start to evenly roll it out [music]

[14:25] side to side back against the curve. And you can kind of go as thin or as thick as you like here. You're just kind thick as you like here. You're just kind [music] of evenly pressing it out.

[14:38] side. That's okay. Then all we're going to do is just fold it. to do is just fold it. Flatten it out. Fold it. And this now will go on a sheet tray. So you now you could just prep a whole

[14:53] careful. If you add too much, you are going to get a lot shooting out the [music] sides. That should be the right amount. Almost like a big burger patty. Maybe a little bit more. So first I go back, I go out,

[15:07] then I start going up. And that's how I try and keep it nice and contained. It's when it's shaved nice and thin. But this already does the work for you. Now, I the heat was up really high to get that stone preheated. But for this, I'm going

[15:23] stone preheated. But for this, I'm going to drop the heat down to like 450. Cook these for like 10 minutes just on one side. While that cooks, our hot sauce is now cooled. See how thick it is? It's got some heat, but it's manageable. I'm

[15:37] going to add some salt, a little more agave, and only because I imported this touch of Frank's Red Hot. That's [music] my touch.

[15:50] sauce, ready to go. Now, one thing you should be noticing right now is there's a smell, an aroma coming from the oven, from that meat that smells good. It's not just like pungent onion or whatever. I'm smelling caramelization. It doesn't

[16:04] need that long. That meat's very thin. It's at a high temperature. We're just [music] we're going to twice cook it. We're going to chop it up, then toss it together, and then broil it. recreate that vibe of the vertical spit it

[16:17] usually gets sliced off of. This been about 15 minutes. Now, before we deal with French fries. Now, I find a decent one if you're going to get them frozen and not make them are these. Just going to use my toaster oven. Just get a thin

[16:31] little layer. Can also throw these in your oven for about 450 for about 10 your oven for about 450 for about 10 minutes. Back to our meat. [music]

[16:47] Some are thin, nice and moist. Now, all we have to do to that, get them onto a cutting board. And then, just like we were shaving it off the spit, we're just going to slice it. While it doesn't smell quite exactly the

[16:59] same, I am getting aroma memories. It was a special smell in this place. I'll never forget it. Now, what I'm going to do, I'm going to turn the broiler on. I got some amazing product right here. beef tallow spray, right? So, it's going

[17:13] to aerosol it. Then, we're going to pop it under the broiler and try and achieve that vertical spit char around like just one side. We don't need to go crazy tossing it around. And if you notice, I'm putting it on the top rack. I want

[17:26] I'm putting it on the top rack. I want to cook it fast and hard. Meat's ready to go. We're going to allow our pizza stone to get up to about 550.

[17:39] a little bit of oil again. And then we're going to get our piece of bread going to oil my rolling pin. And then I'm just going to roll it out as big as I can. [music]

[17:56] steel. We're just going to measure the temp. 540 in the center. I'm going to pull her out. Place it. Allow that steam to release the paper. Wait like 30 seconds for those bubbles to start to form. Wait

[18:12] for those bubbles to start to form. Wait for it to release. Flip. bread, our meat, our fries, our beautiful like look at them. They're like pickled onions now. M. They're good on their own. First up,

[18:27] M. They're good on their own. First up, I'm going to go with white sauce. Then we're going to start to pile up our meat. Place those fries in there. some of our tomatoes

[18:39] and our [music] onions. More white sauce. Now, that's the setup, right? We're going to slide that onto some aluminum

[18:53] [music] foil, pull it back, and I'm going to roll it pull it back, and I'm going to roll it into a burrito.

[19:06] talking about here? That is more or less what I was served in Florence. [music] One of my favorite things in the world. Let's see how we did. Nostalgia is hitting hard right now. First off, the white sauce is bonkers. The hot sauce

[19:19] brings like a flavorful heat, something balanced once it's in there. It's a lot milder than where [music] it is just tasting it out of the bottle. And wild gyro meat or kebab meat, whatever, is always better freshly sliced off a

[19:31] vertical spit. This is an amazing way to get that flavor at home, especially cuz even remotely close to what you want. Nearly impossible these days. Shirts rooted from a viral recipe, but maybe not all viral recipes are that bad. Head

[19:45] on down in the description, check out my Patreon. We doing a cooking school over there with live streams, homework, interaction. It's fun over there. care of yourself and go feed [music] yourself.