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!

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)!

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]