Adana Kebabı (Hand-Minced Grilled Kebab)

Name: Adana Kebabı (Hand-Minced Grilled Kebab)
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients: 800 g Lamb shoulder, coarsely ground or hand-chopped; 150 g Lamb tail fat or beef suet, finely chopped; 2 tbsp Turkish red pepper flakes (pul biber); 2 tsp Salt; 2 cloves Garlic, grated (optional); 1 Onion, thinly sliced; 1 tbsp Sumac; 4 pieces Flatbread (lavaş), to serve; 2 each Long green peppers and tomatoes, to grill; Flat-leaf parsley

Fatty lamb, hand-chopped rather than machine-minced, kneaded to a paste with red pepper and pressed onto wide flat skewers, then grilled over charcoal until the edges char — the fiery kebab named after the city of Adana.

Source

Recipe by Ocakbaşı grill houses, Adana · 🏺 Traditional · The charcoal-grill houses of Adana and southeastern Türkiye, where the kebab is a protected regional specialty

Adana · protected regional specialty — An ownerless regional dish, so no individual cook is credited. The cited article documents Adana kebab as a hand-minced lamb kebab from the Adana region, registered in Türkiye as a protected geographical indication and seasoned chiefly with red pepper. Quantities and step wording here are this book's own.

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Kitchen Diaries by Zubda The Smoker Baker Aqsa's Cuisine

⏱ 70 min🍽 4 servings🔥 430 kcal🇹🇷 Turkey🌶️🌶️

HalalDairy-free

Steps

Put the meat, chopped fat, pepper flakes, salt and garlic in a wide bowl. Knead hard for a full 5 minutes, folding and pressing, until the mixture turns tacky and holds together in a single mass.
💡 That kneading is what lets the meat cling to a skewer without a binder. Under-kneaded meat slides off into the fire.
Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes. Cold, firm meat is far easier to shape and stays on the skewer.
With wet hands, take a fistful and press it in a long, even sausage down a wide flat skewer, squeezing so it grips. No skewers? Shape flat logs straight onto a tray instead.
💡 Wide flat skewers, not thin round ones — a round skewer lets the meat spin and it drops off when you turn it.
Grill over hot charcoal (or under a very hot grill / on a ridged pan), turning every couple of minutes, for about 12–15 minutes until charred outside and just cooked through. Grill the tomatoes and peppers alongside.
Rest the kebabs on the flatbread for a minute so the bread soaks up the juices. Top with the sumac onions and parsley and serve with the grilled vegetables.

💡 Tips

Keep everything cold — bowl, hands, meat. Warm fat smears instead of staying in clean flecks, and the kebab loses its texture.
The milder version of the same kebab, without the extra pepper, is Urfa kebabı — make that if you want it gentle.
Beef with 20% fat works if lamb is hard to find, but add a little more pepper — beef carries less of its own flavour.