Turkish Lamb Stuffed Cabbage Rolls with Spiced Dill Yoghurt

A really tasty Turkish dish that's delicious, filling and comforting...

You could even convert cabbage haters with this one, as it tastes so good - and if there are small people around they could even help making the rolls, as the lamb is cooked off before assembling (making them more likely to eat it!).

Makes enough rolls for 8 servings - I freeze half for a really easy dinner another time that can be cooked straight from frozen, and cook half now. If you feel too lazy to make rolls, see Notes for an alternative method!

Delicious Homemade Doner Kebab Meat / Lamb Gyro Meat - Gluten Free and Dairy Free (includes Thermomix instructions)

A delicious doner kebab that you don't have to feel guilty about!

If you love a doner kebab, but you feel kind of uncomfortable about not knowing exactly what you're eating, then here is the perfect recipe to recreate what you get from your local takeaway at home, without any fancy equipment, and know that only good, wholesome ingredients have gone into it!

If you also happen love a good fresh tomato chilli sauce on top, and some garlic yoghurt sauce, I have blogged my very easy recipes for those too, which require no cooking, just mixing ingredients together! The chilli sauce recipe is here, and the garlic yoghurt sauce recipe is here.

If you're not into sauces, this is also delicious without any sauces and just served with fresh salad and a tiny squeeze of lemon, as there is so much flavour in the meat - even though I might be biased, I do not think that you could come closer to the flavour and texture of the doner meat from a typical kebab house in this country if you tried! Close your eyes and eat it, and you're there - except, dare I say it, it's even tastier!

Anyway, enough eulogising, and onto the recipe. If you're familiar with my recipes, you'll know that I always prefer to use fresh ingredients. Using onions and garlic granules / powder is not something I usually do, and it's not a shortcut here - it's for the flavour, and to keep the texture of the meat firm and close enough to thinly slice when it's chilled: as opposed to using fresh onion which would add a lot of unwanted liquid to the mixture, as well as the flavour of raw onion (and garlic) in this context, which is less authentic-tasting.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, please bear in mind this is a homemade replication of the doner meat found in English takeaways, rather than one of my more gourmet affairs - if you give it a try, please leave me a comment to let me know what you think! If you'd like to make more authentic Turkish kebabs, please have a look at my recipes for chicken shish kebabs, and lamb (adana) kebabs and the various accompaniments - great for BBQs!

Also, did I mention, once your meat is cooked and sliced, and your salad is prepped - it takes about 10-15 seconds to heat the meat through, and less than 5 minutes to throw together a home made doner kebab - how amazing is that!!!

Serves: 800g of 20% fat organic lamb mince (plus herbs and spices) yielded approximately 770g of cooked meat after draining and cooling. 100g of sliced meat makes for a very generously stuffed large doner kebab, so in total this would serve around 8 to 12 people (depending on serving sizes). Freezes well.

Hearty Shepherd's Pie (including Instant Pot Pressure Cooker method)

There are few things more comforting for lamb lovers, than a decent Shepherd's pie!

After cooking an enormous (for us!) leg of lamb, I really wanted to make the most of the leftovers in a tasty dish everyone would love, including using up the lamb stock I had made from the bones too (although a decent lamb stock cube will do a good job too).

Shepherd's pie is such a classic way of using up roast leftovers, and really did ours justice. We like to cook our lamb leg roasts pink, and after braising in the sauce the meat leftovers came out really tender cooked this way, so I'd highly recommend it. I usually make Shepherd's pie from raw minced lamb, as there aren't generally enough leftovers after a roast for a decent-sized pie, but it's definitely worth making extra for this!

Jamaican Curry Goat or Lamb (includes Thermomix and Instant Pot instructions)

If you've never tried curry goat, and you love curry, then you really, really should - it's delicious! And if the thought of goat curry scares you, then try it with mutton or lamb instead, and go from there...

I do love a good curry goat, and always have to sample some when we go to the Caribbean carnivals. Traditionally it's made with cubes of meat on the bone, but if you don't like the idea of trying to pick meat from small chopped up bones, then you can use boneless shoulder meat (and if you like, optionally add a few bones to the curry whilst cooking for flavour).

Because this curry is so full of flavour, and cooked low and slow, it's also a great contender for a skinny version too, as goat meat is naturally quite lean - so if you want to cut the calories right down and use some lean meat (e.g. lean goat meat or extra lean diced lamb meat) the long and gentle cooking will tenderise it nicely.

Either way, I've given you the recipe below, with a couple of options to suit, and I hope you enjoy it! If you don't want to make your own Jamaican curry powder, then you can just use a generic ready-made *mild* curry powder if you like and add a pinch of ground allspice. Requires marinating for a minimum of 4 hours or overnight, and approximately 3 hours total cooking. Delicious (albeit decadent!) served with Jamaican 'rice and peas' - my recipe is here.

Serves six (or more with other dishes), 286 calories per serving with lean goat meat, or 368 calories per serving with extra lean diced lamb meat. [Calories in square brackets, if you're counting]

Love Jamaican food? Why not try my Jamaican jerk chicken, or fresh twist on saltfish and ackee?

Classic Moussaka - with additional Skinny Version under 350 calories (includes Thermomix instructions)

A classic and comforting dish, full of flavour with flexible options to suit everybody.

Layers of rich meaty sauce, flavoured with earthy Mediterranean spices and herbs, alternating with tender slices of aubergine, topped with a béchamel sauce enriched with egg yolks and cheese.

I like to make up a double quantity of the meat sauce, and freeze it so that next time I just have to cook the aubergines and béchamel before assembling - however, to avoid confusion, I've just put the quantities as you need them to serve six (they're easily doubled if you want to do this too - which is why I've separated the different parts of the dish to make it easier to double up the sauce).
This serves 6 people. If you're counting calories and keeping it lean with the skinny version, then this is from 347 calories per serving with skinny béchamel, steamed aubergines and extra lean beef mince. For a more luxurious and traditional version, it's 566 calories per serving as below, with oven-baked aubergines. You can switch which bits you please to suit you - the calories are split out for each ingredient to help you re-count. See Notes below for some of the variables.

You can make and assemble this a day or two in advance if you like, as it tastes even better the next day, sets nicely and is easier to cut once it's chilled - it will just need longer to cook from chilled.

Oh - and 'The Quick Cheat': If you don't want to faff about layering meat sauce with aubergines and potatoes and all that... well, you really don't have to for a simple supper. Just cook the meat sauce in a large pan which will fit underneath the grill (USA broiler) while you're cooking the aubergines/potatoes, and add in the tomatoes a little earlier (skip the egg white) to reduce down while you make the béchamel, then toss in the aubergines (and potatoes if using). Stir through and cook for a few minutes until the aubergines are heated through, then pour the béchamel over the top, scatter with the grated cheese, and pop under a pre-heated grill (broiler) until it's bubbling and browned (You could even Super-Cheat and just scatter over a block of crumbled feta if you didn't want to make the béchamel sauce, as a tasty alternative!). Set aside for a few minutes to cool, and serve with a fresh green salad (and some crusty bread)!

Lamb Kleftiko (Arni Kleftiko)

After marinating overnight, this tasty dish pretty much takes care of itself with a long slow roast...

Named after the 'Klephts' - Greek bandits of the countryside who would allegedly steal the odd lamb or goat and cook it in sealed pit ovens, to avoid the smoke being seen - lamb kleftiko is usually cooked slowly on the bone after marinating in lemon juice, garlic, herbs and olive oil.

Needless to say, like many classic dishes from around the world, there are many versions - everything from cooking single lamb portions or cutlets with vegetables in filo pastry to the whole leg or shoulder roasted in a clay pot, sealed as tightly as possible. If you want, you can add potatoes to this dish for the last hour of cooking to cook in the lamb juices, but I prefer to cook them separately if I'm serving it with potatoes, so that they have their own individual flavour.

Kleftiko is delicious served with flatbreads or pitta, Tzatziki and Greek salad (click on highlighted text for my recipes); or if you fancy having it as your 'roast dinner' it's delicious served with roast potatoes (I like to parboil, and then roast them with a little lemon zest and olive oil for this, or use whole baby/new potatoes, parboiled then roasted with whole, unpeeled garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs - roast for about half an hour, or as mentioned you can put them in with the lamb for the last hour), and roasted Meditteranean vegetables, or something like my braised okra in tomato sauce (bamies) which is also popular in Greece (more side dishes to come!).

This serves six - go for the heavier weight if you're serving people with big appetites! However, the quantities can also be halved for a smaller joint (see to the left of the photo above - there is a small, rolled, boneless shoulder joint). Takes 3 hours to cook, and needs to marinade overnight (or at least for several hours).

Calorie wise, (if you're counting) roast lamb shoulder is around 205 to 230 calories per 100g, if you trim the fat off your portion, plus add on another 20 to 40 calories for a drizzle of the juices/gravy. I'd say a portion of around 120g (roughly equivalent to the weight of your average chicken breast) would probably suit most people with normal appetites (especially as lamb is so rich-tasting) so you're looking at around 300 calories with juices/gravy (provided you have that weight of lamb without the fat).

Get the BBQ Out for a Turkish Night In! (Or the Grill or Griddle...)

The nights are getting warmer, and it's time to get the BBQ out and fire it up - whether it's for friends, or family, or just the two of you.

There are some foods just made for barbecuing. Many countries have their own versions of kebabs, and barbecued meats and fish and vegetables. Turkey is no exception, and cooking food over burning coals (as on a mangal) is a speciality.

And, bonus - it can be pretty healthy too, and you wouldn't even know it!

So I've put together a little collection of my Turkish recipes, for a tasty evening to share with friends or family - you can either scale down by half, warm up leftovers the next day, or freeze half of the meat uncooked for another time if the quantities are too large for you (the rice and hummus freeze well too). I've also included a shopping list below, as well as a key to what to prepare and when, to make it easy to put together.

If you're counting calories, then here's an example of how surprisingly few it adds up to per portion - you can eat everything pictured on the above plate for under 500 calories (and that's with full fat Greek yoghurt, and full fat organic lamb mince - so no compromise on flavour with dry, extra lean beef steak, either!) - and if you're not counting, you can have some nibbles beforehand, and go back for seconds! You could have just chicken skewers, or just lamb skewers with everything else and adjust the calorie count accordingly.

All in all, this is fantastic as either a healthy and delicious meal that's a real treat - or use the recipes the next time you get the BBQ out to entertain your friends, for something a little bit different and completely delicious! Click on the highlighted  text to go to each different recipe. [Calories in square brackets if you're counting]

Turkish (Lamb) Adana Kebabs / Kofta Kebabs - the Really Mouth-Watering Recipe... (AKA How to be a Kebab King/Queen!)

It may seem like I enthuse a lot over some of my recipes, but I only do that when I think they're really, really good and I've spent time perfecting them!

And this one, I tried making with different levels of herbs and spices, then different ratios of lamb and beef, and different fat proportions, until the combination of the spices, and the flavour and succulence of the meats just sang. Even thinking about how juicy and tasty these kebabs are, straight off a hot smoky barbecue makes my mouth water!

For me, there has to be lamb present as a majority. And I'm afraid it can't be lean, or extra lean lamb. If you're able to mince your own, or go to the butcher to buy your mince, then make sure it's from shoulder of lamb. The fat content is pivotal in getting those kebabs all juicy and sizzling and tasty ('Fat is flavour' as someone once said).

I've tried it with beef mince only, and for me, it just doesn't work. (Because the whole 'lamb' flavour is missing, obvs). Making it with lean or extra lean beef alone just yields a really dry result, I'm afraid. And I'm spoilt by having tasted really good Turkish Adana kebabs and being fortunate enough to have a really good Turkish restaurant within 20 minutes drive. Who cook their kebabs on a proper mangal, on top of burning coals. Mmmmm.

Anyway, I digress. I found my perfect balance of lamb vs. beef, and rather than using my local butcher, I used something from a supermarket, so that you can recreate exactly what I cooked and I know it will be good, rather than me getting all the good stuff, then you going down to [insert name of supermarket] and feeling like you got a duff deal. If you can cook this on the barbecue, you will be achieving near-as-damnit-perfection from a domestic point of view. So go on, give it a go... it's delicious served on top of my easy Turkish rice, with some Cacik as a dip (think Tzatziki) and a simple Vegetable Kebab as a must to compliment it, Turkish red cabbage salad, maybe a warm flatbread to hold it with and a side salad. And you can make them the day before, along with maybe my Turkish chicken shish kebabs (similarly perfected flavour-wise, of course!), and invite your best, most appreciative friends over to enjoy them with!

Oh, and it would be rather rude not to make them some of your own hummus, perfected with my recipe and tips, along with a selection of spiced pitta crisps to serve them with.

If you fancy making up a whole Turkish feast, with a shopping list and preparation plan then have a look here!

So, here you are... lamb-on-a-skewer perfection! And as for Adana/Kofta - if you want to impress your friends by telling them which of the two they're eating, use wide metal skewers, and shape the lamb around them in one length per skewer and call them Adana kebabs (and you could get away with a little more spiciness). Or if you want to call them Kofta kebabs, roll the lamb into walnut-sized balls and slide them onto a skewer. Me? I find it easiest to use soaked wooden skewers as the meat seems to stick better, and squidge the mince around them in a flatt-ish sausage shape and to hell with it - it tastes good any which way! Oh, and if you Google kofta kebabs (not the right spelling, but I've had to use it too, for continuity!), you'll see a lot of the well-known chefs get it wrong and just wrap it around the skewer in a sausage too... ;)

Makes 12 skewers, at 133 calories per skewer (two skewers per serving). Serves six as the protein part of the dish on its own, or more with other kebabs (e.g. alongside my chicken shish kebabs). [Calories in square brackets]

Lamb and Harissa Burgers

Gorgeous juicy lamb-burgers, with a hit of harissa paste and Moroccan spices

This is actually my significant other's recipe, and as the burgers tasted so good, I'd like to share them with you (being the food blogger in the family)!

I also got him to calculate the calories on them too, for those who count (because I know a lot do!).

Serves 2 (or one Mike), easily doubled. Total calories per serving, 500. [Calories in square brackets]

Browning Minced (Ground) Meat - how to get maximum flavour

I thought this would be a valuable mini-post, for those who like to pack in as much flavour as possible to their dishes!

See below for how to get the most out of your mince, when browning it.

Stuffed Aubergines (Eggplants) with Moorish Spices and Manchego Cheese

This is actually a form of distraction from chocolate...

Not this dish, per se, but posting it here. Which is passing some of the time before I can rescue my box of Troffel Chocolates from their hiding place after the children have gone to bed. More on that later, as you want to know how to cook delicious stuffed aubergines, not how to eat chocolate truffles!

Aubergines get a bad press sometimes, because they are guilty of being the type of vegetable which can soak up a lot of oil if you let them. Not that all oils are bad, but certain things are best in moderation.

That's not a problem with this Spanish dish, because the aubergines are partially steamed first, to tenderise them before finishing off the cooking process.

Steaming aubergines can give meltingly tender results, when you cook them all the way through, and I have a couple in the fridge waiting to be experimented upon to see whether I can do this to make 'fish fragrant' aubergines, a popular Sichuan dish. But I digress, you're after these juicy-looking cheese topped aubergines, so here is my stuffed aubergines recipe...

Berenjenas Rellenas de Carne (Aubergines stuffed with meat)

Serves four as a main meal with side dishes (or use really small aubergines to serve this dish as tapas), 244 calories per serving as a main.

Aubergines are popular in the Balearic Islands, and in this dish they are steamed in a pan with a little water before being stuffed, which means that unlike in many aubergine dishes, they do not soak up oil like sponges, and the flesh and the skin come out meltingly tender. However eating stuffed aubergines with cheese on the top feels incredibly decadent, and you’d never believe they were under 250 calories, when you taste them!