We don’t keep a lot of ground meat in the freezer- none really. It’s not that we oppose ground meat in any way, but we generally use ground meat for sausages (fresh or cured), and we grind it as we need it. This kebab recipe might change that.

These kebabs are possibly the simplest ground meat preparation we have ever done other than a burger, and they far exceeded our expectations. Meat, onion, a little mint, and some fire and you have something that is highly addictive and satisfying. I quite literally couldn't stop eating them as they came off the grill.

We scaled out this recipe the same way we write our sausage recipes because a key part is getting the fat ratio right. If you have pre-ground venison with fat already mixed in just add the onion and seasoning and you're good to go, but be sure to work the mixture to get it to bind.

You can form the meat mixture into a tube by hand and skewer the kebabs that way, but we found that running the meat through a sausage press with a skewer inserted into the nozzle worked beautifully.

Be sure to cook these over fire, the addition of smoke and char really sets it off. Leftovers are great wrapped up in flat bread or pita. Make these with foraged sumac for an extra wow factor.

Venison Kebabs

This recipes is written in percentages. Weigh the venison you would like to grind. If you have 2000 g of venison, and the recipe calls for 33% pork fat, multiply 2000 x .33 = 660 g pork fat. And so forth down the ingredient list. This results in a more consistent dish.

Prep: 30 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

100% venison, trimmed, cubed

33% pork fat, cubed

30% onion, diced

2% salt

1% black pepper, ground

0.1% dried mint, ground

Sumac (optional)

Method

Mix all ingredients, grind through coarse die, then grind through fine die.

Mix well with a wooden spoon or in a stand mixer for around 1-2 minutes until tacky.

If you have a sausage stuffer, the best way to make these is to run the meat through it and onto the skewers. Flat metal skewers work best. Crank the sausage stuffer until the meat is almost coming out of the tube, then back it off a little and insert the skewer into the stuffing tube. Resume turning the stuffer, and slowly pull the skewer out as the meat is pushed out. This makes perfectly cylindrical kebabs.

If you don’t have a sausage stuffer, just roll the meat out into a cylinder or ball and skewer it. It’ll still taste great, but you do want to make sure your kebabs are roughly evenly sized so they cook at the same rate.

Grill over direct medium-high heat and dust with sumac powder halfway through.

We like to eat these with flatbread, grilled tomatoes, red onions, ajvar (a condiment made with roasted red peppers, eggplant, & oil) and labneh.