Karsian barbeque

Kars is situated in the North-East of Turkey and holds an interesting place in the history of Turkey and the South Caucasus. But we'd better leave this to the history blogs and let us discuss delicious facts about Kars.

Fact #1: Shawarma is a Leventin-Arab meal.

Fact #2: In Turkey Shawarma is called Donner Kebab, which means "spinning meat."

Fact #3: Donner and Shawarma are both ancient, complete dishes as they consist of all the products which human body needs for functioning – vegetables, bread and meat.

To cut it short, Georgians also spin the meat, roast barbeque and make Kebab, but the question is – why don't we have Georgian Shawarma, Georgian spinning meat, a middle product between Kebab and barbeque?

The following recipe is for Kars barbeque, which will stand as a Georgian version of Turkish Donner accompanied by aromatic bread and Matsoni sauce.

Preparation Time

60+ mn

Difficulty

Medium difficulty

CAL

500+ calories

Type of Food

Main dish

Goes with

Limonati by Borjomi tarkhun

Recipe author

Luka Nachkebia

Ingredients

White dry wine

200 milliliter

Corn flour

30 gram

leek

30 gram

Egg

3 piece

Yeast

30 gram

Wheat flour

300 gram

green pepper

4 piece

Matsoni

50 milliliter

Garlic

15 gram

Coriander

10 gram

Spinach

150 gram

Onion

150 gram

Savory

15 gram

Pork

250 gram

Beef

250 gram

step

Break two eggs (washed beforehand) into flour, add 100 ml of Borjomi and kneed. Pour 50 ml of warm water into separate vessel, add some yeast and sugar and wait for 10 minutes for yeast to breath and emit some bubbles. Add 1/3 spoon of salt, yeast water and 2 table spoons of Matsoni, 2 cloves of pressed and minced garlic, 2 stalks of thinly minced scallions or leek. Stir carefully, kneed for 10 minutes and roll dough down to 1cm of thickness. Rest dough on well-floured vessel, cover it and keep on about 32 degrees for 40 minutes. Yeast is a living organism. It loves sugar and hates high temperature, so don't keep it too hot.

step

Cut your pork and beef into long pieces and batter them thinly. Place meat in vessel, spring with about 2 teaspoons of summer savory, pour some wine and cover with Borjomi (Borjomi creates alkali environment and neutralizes the wine's acidity and softens the meat) and let it sit for 20 minutes. Then skew meat on grill one by one mixing pork and beef in order to get the beef greased by pork fat.

step

Press 2 cloves of garlic in Matsoni, add 2 table spoons of honey and spring with black pepper and salt. Mix and put in the fridge until next usage. Imagine how great it would taste to have cool Matsoni with freshly baked hot bread and juicy barbeque as meat greases down into the bread topped with aromatic sauce. Place your meat on the brazier and do not salt until meat pieces start whitening. Meanwhile cut some onion and spinach thinly and mix them. Spinach is one of the most underestimated salad varieties in Georgia as almost nobody consumes it raw, while the most delicious spinach is raw spinach. Meanwhile place bread in the 250C oven for 4-5 minutes until we get it golden. The newly baked bread will be hard. By that time your barbeque should already be roasted and you can cut some roasted pieces with a sharp knife and throw them in the cut out bread, top it with sauce, and season with spinach and onion.

Serve

The dish can be spread and accompanied by bread, or pack it in the bread and eat with hands. It can be washed down with tarragon or basil lemonade or a mixture of Borjomi and grape juice (1:1).

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