I am in the mood for a kebab. By this I do not mean the slimy offerings of the local ‘bab’ house; I want home grown perfection. We (myself and partner Chris) have been slowly working our way towards producing our ‘perfect’ kebab for some months past. Of course, what is perfection depends on our moods and our supplies but I feel we are getting pretty close.

It begins of course, with the bread; a foodstuff I am extremely passionate about as no doubt future posts will prove (they are the basis of sandwiches – something which I am bordering on obsessed with) and which is also completely necessary to cradle the ‘babbage’ (that’s young Brit speak for ‘filling’). Chris is always in charge of this element, deftly producing a stack of steaming fresh flatbreads at the merest hint of a request. His method is as follows; take a load of self-raising flour, stick it into a mixing bowl, add 1 pinch each of salt and sugar (add cumin seeds if you wish) and mix together with water until, ‘it looks like dough’. Shape into flatbreads and cook in a dry pan for around 1 minute each side until lightly charred and fluffed. Simple as.

The filling takes slightly more effort. We usually opt for lamb as the flavour is hard to beat for that authentic kaboby oompf. I have been yearning for the chance to make chermoula for months and this seems like the perfect opportunity so I scout around for inspiration. I am tempted by the dry, rub type chermoulas but I opt for the wet as I want to enjoy that unctuous oily coating dripping, spitting and crackling as it hits the barbecue. Now when I say barbecue, what I am actually referring to is a ’self-lighting tray’ purchased from the local hardware come junk shop for £1.50 (look, I live in a flat – you have to improvise), not ideal but a small taste of summer nonetheless. We are loathe to invest in a larger grill for fear that the balcony roof might cave in onto the unsuspecting residents below………

Now this is the first time that I have made chermoula and I want to try a recipe first before I begin to tweak and tamper so after researching thoroughly I end up back where I started with the mecca of all food blogs, chocolate and zucchini.

It is Clotilde’s recipe that I used, minus the optional saffron, a memory lapse on my part. Some may feel it a little of a cop out using a fellow bloggers’ recipe in my first post but frankly, I don’t give a damn. I make the marinade as suggested in my beloved pestle and mortar and slather it over the chunks of lamb fillet bought from the butchers this morning (I wanted chump but they didn’t have it). My local butchers deserves mention here; they are no less than the multi award winning butchers William Rose http://www.williamrosebutchers.com/ – de-camped from Kennington to avoid the congestion charge and they are simply fabulous. In fact, East Dulwich is a small piece of foodie heaven but more of that in later posts.

While the lamb is marinating, it is time to turn attention to the ‘liquor’ by which I mean the accompanying sauce whose primary purpose is to cut through the richness of the lamb, providing a zingy freshness, a contrasting texture and a constant dribble running down the side of your hand. We have enjoyed endless variations on our basic tzatziki recipe but feel that it has always been lacking a certain something, a certain creaminess. ‘Why not add some cream then?’ a reasonable person might suggest but we decide that this would lose the crisp freshness of the sauce, it would probably just meld with the flavour of the meat rather than offer any sort of contrast. In comes a flash of inspiration, creme fraiche! I use natural yoghurt and a dash of creme fraiche. The result is a fresh tasting, very tzatziki-like sauce; there is a pleasing sharpness to it followed by a slight creamy finish.

Today’s Tzatziki

1/3 cucumber, chopped as fine as you wish (I like to keep a certain chunkiness so that it doesn’t come over all coy when you introduce it to the kebab)
Small bunch mint – leaves picked and chopped
Around 1/3 of a 500g pot natural yoghurt (I think full fat is nice and apparently, the nutritional benefits of eating full fat yoghurt offset the fat content)
Half of a small pot of creme fraiche (oops, there goes the balance….)
1 fat clove of garlic
salt and pepper
Juice of 1 small lemon

Mix the yoghurt and creme fraiche together with the mint and cucumber. Pound the garlic together with a good pinch of salt in a pestle and mortar and add this to the mix along with a good grind of black pepper and the lemon juice to taste. Adjust the seasoning and set aside for the flavours to marry. I always break the rules by eating this straight from the fridge; of course, this means that the flavours are slightly impaired but I don’t care because I find that hot/cold contrast impossible to resist.

And now to the accompaniments………

Of course you can go the whole hog and pile your kebab high with a tower of relish and garnish – exactly what we did when we started our quest all those months ago. We quickly realised however that this was just the trap of excitement, so easy to fall into with food like this. One should always remember the foodie mantra, ‘Keep – It – Simple’ and so that is what we do; a few crisp, fresh lettuce leaves from the glorious bounty that is our weekly vegetable box and, oh, go on then, a few thin slices of hot red chilli – just to add that dirty takeaway finish.

The next day we buy another makeshift barbecue (a size bigger this time) and barbecue some remaining lamb with onions (red and shallots), thinly sliced potatoes and more lemons, all glistening in the sun with olive oil and seasoning. Fresh leaves make the base for a summer salad; barbecued fare piled on top and drizzled with the remaining tzatzki. It turns out that the bread was completely superfluous and we pat ourselves on the back for this much improved dish. It also comes to mind that the chermoula marinade would make something very special if you smothered it over a butterflied leg of lamb and cooked that on the barbecue. Roll on summer……