The oven cooked style of kebab is vastly popular in Turkey, and hence by the geographical proximity, in the North Western Azeri region of Iran. Herb and pepper mixed meat mixtures are thinly spread on shallow pans (called Tava) and cooked in oven. According to a Turkish friend, many neighborhood butchers in Turkey accept patron's pan and fill it with their prepared mixture. The patron then takes the pan to the neighborhood's bakery, asking them to cook their kebab in their oven, in exchange of their purchase of fresh bread. The idea of Tava kebab seems to have spread out throughout Iran. The Persian style
pan kebab (i.e. Tabeh kebab) is a rather similar dish, with less herbs and pepper.
Ingredients:
1.1 Pounds (~500
gr) 80/20 ground beef
1 medium white
onion
2 TBPS Aleppo
pepper
1 small bunch
of parsley
1 TSP salt
1 TBSP tomato
paste
16 cherry tomatoes
8 Shishito
peppers
Finely puree half the parsley and onion. Finely chop the second half of parsley. Mix the onion puree, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley with the cold meat. Knead briefly and make sure it is well-mixed.
Rub the bottom of a shallow pan (of no more than 8 Inches [~20 cm] in diameter) with tomato paste. Evenly spread the meat on the pan. Slit four deep slices on the meat, to make eight slices as seen above. Spread the tomatoes and peppers on top of the meat.
Bake in a 425 F (~220 C) oven for half an hour. The meat fat is released, forming a pool on the pan. The meat get submerged in the fat and remains moist. The situation is similar to the "Confit" setup.
Here is an alternative Indian version. To make it, I replaces the parsley with cilantro and the Aleppo with Kashmiri chili powder. I also sprinkled the bottom with a TSP of Garam Masala.
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