{"id":5157,"date":"2016-07-27T19:00:54","date_gmt":"2016-07-27T23:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/104.236.198.25\/?p=5157"},"modified":"2024-12-24T14:46:38","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T19:46:38","slug":"xinjiang-lamb-skewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/omnivorescookbook.com\/xinjiang-lamb-skewers\/","title":{"rendered":"Xinjiang Lamb Skewers (\u65b0\u7586\u70e4\u4e32, chuar)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The real-deal Xinjiang lamb skewers recipe that helps you cook exactly the way that Chinese street vendors do. Learn the best practices of choosing cuts, making the marinade, and grilling over charcoal.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Xinjiang<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Living in Austin Texas, we have the privilege of enjoying high quality BBQ. If we crave some meat for lunch, we simply drive five minutes to a food truck and spend 15 dollars on a box of smoky beef brisket, sausage, and ribs, with mac and cheese and potato salad as sides. That meal is more than enough for two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I\u2019ve missed has been Xinjiang style grilled lamb, an iconic street snack in Northern China. When summer comes, locals crowd the streets of Beijing. They sit outdoors, wearing t-shirts and flip flops, snacking on lamb skewers and drinking cold beer. People call them \u201cold Beijing skewers\u201d nowadays. But the food originated in Xinjiang<\/a>, the largest Chinese administrative division, where the majority of people are ethnically Uighur and religiously Muslim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Xinjiang<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What are Xinjiang lamb skewers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Lamb skewers, or chuar (\u4e32\u513f), are similar to Middle Eastern style lamb kebabs, but vary in the size of the cut and the way they\u2019re seasoned. The most common type you\u2019ll find in Beijing are the smaller skewers. For a dinner for two, it\u2019s not strange that they\u2019d start by ordering a dozen skewers, then finish with another 30 to feel satisfied. The skewers are always cooked in small batches and served right off the grill. We want our skewers smoking hot, so hot you can still hear the oil sizzling on the meat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Made with 4 to 5 pieces of lamb, the skewers are only about 5 inches long, and the meat is no bigger than the thickness of your thumb. Vendors marinate the meat with salt, both whole and ground cumin, white pepper, chili powder, and Sichuan peppercorns. To make the cheap lamb kabobs extra juicy, they place small chunks of fat between each piece of meat. The fat mostly melts away on the grill, leaving caramelized crispy bits that burst in your mouth with savory juice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Street vendors use the simplest grill, a 20-inch by 7-inch rectangular box made of thin sheet metal to hold the charcoal. It doesn\u2019t even have a grate on it, let alone a lid. The grill is just narrow enough to hold the bamboo skewers with the meat fully exposed to the charcoal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A vendor can skillfully hold 10 skewers in each hand in a fan arrangement, flipping every few minutes, and occasionally sprinkling another layer of cumin and chili powder onto them. The fat melts and drips down onto the charcoal, sputtering and smoking. The aroma from the roasted spices and browning meat mixes with the hot summer air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Man, it was good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Xinjiang<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How to cook Xinjiang lamb skewers in your backyard<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To recreate the real-deal Chinese grilling experience, I purchased a 32-inch party grill<\/a> from Amazon. It is exactly the type that street vendors use back in China. Of course you can cook this dish on your Weber grill. But the benefits of this smaller rectangle grill are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n