Lamb skewers from Uyghur cooks of Xinjiang — small pieces of mutton interleaved with fat, dusted with cumin, chile flakes, and Sichuan pepper over open coals — that conquered every Chinese city as late-night shaokao street food. The character for the dish (串) is a pictogram of meat on a stick.
Also known as: chuan, chuan'r, 串, 羊肉串, yang rou chuan, Chinese lamb skewers, Xinjiang kebab, shao kao
Watch it made
Ingredients
- 600 g lamb leg with some fat left on, in 1.5 cm pieces
- Half an onion, blitzed with 100 ml water
- 2 tbsp cumin seeds, half of them ground
- 1 tbsp coarse chili flakes
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp white sesame seeds
- Thin metal or bamboo skewers
- Cold beer (treat it as an ingredient)
How to make it
- 1
Steep the lamb in the onion water half an hour, drain well and blot dry.
- 2
Skewer small pieces snugly, letting a fatty piece land every third spot.
- 3
Line the skewers in a tight row over narrow, fierce coals and roll the whole rank in unison every 20-30 seconds, street-vendor style.
- 4
Midway, pinch the cumin-chili-salt mix over both sides and keep rolling until the spices toast and the fat blisters, 6-8 minutes total.
- 5
Flick sesame seeds over at the end and eat straight off the metal, beer in the other hand.
Pro tip: Use cumin two ways, half ground and half whole seed: the powder soaks into the meat while the seeds stay on the surface and pop between your teeth, the double hit every Chinese night-market stall gets by accident of volume.
