Karski kebab: classic recipe with photos, delicious sauce

Culinary atlas. Back to the USSR: Karski-style shashlik June 28, 2013, 00:00 | Galina Zamyslova

11 chosen

Karski style shashlik! – and having accepted the order, the waiter leaves to bring one of the most popular dishes from pre-revolutionary times to the table after the allotted time. In Soviet-era restaurants, ordering Karski-style shish kebab was a special luxury. Alas, these days it is rare where you will be served not just real Karsky, but at least a semblance of that delicious dish. It would seem something simpler - meat roasted over charcoal on a spit! Alas, many culinary traditions are overgrown with innovations, sometimes changing beyond recognition. Shish kebab has become a familiar and simple picnic and weekend dish, with a thousand and one recipes. And only real Karski-style kebab remains the property of the best restaurants in the world and outstanding “home” chefs. Let's try to join their ranks?

How it was

In Armenia, kebab is called khorovats, and in Azerbaijan, kebab, in Turkey, shish-kebab, and in Georgia, dear guests will be served mtsvadi, fried on a dry grapevine. Where did Karski kebab come from? The siege of the Kars fortress by Russian troops lasted five months in 1855 under the command of General Nikolai Muravyov. The capture of the fortress was so important that for this victory Muravyov received the title of Count of Karsky! Returning to St. Petersburg, Count Karsky brought to the capital not only stories about battles, but also the fashion for a new dish - lamb kebab, named Karsky in honor of the fortress and the hero who took it.

Its main difference from other cooking methods is that it is prepared from large pieces of meat or one taken from a certain part of the carcass and wrapped in a fat mesh. The marinade for Karski kebab is also special - in addition to salt, onions and spices, cognac or, in extreme cases, dry wine is used. Along with a piece of meat, a tomato and pickled onion are placed on a skewer, as well as lamb kidneys prepared in a special way. Today, any kebab in Kars is called kebab, prepared from large pieces of any meat or on the bone, even pork, but we know that only lamb could graze near Kars, and we will not let ourselves be deceived!

So, if you are ready to begin the sacred rite of cooking barbecue in Karski, then first of all we will tackle the most important thing - the marinade!

Marinade for kebab in Karski:

8-10 bulbs
50 g cognac
lemon juice squeezed from 2 lemons or a glass of dry wine
salt, allspice, ground cloves (on the tip of a knife)
finely chopped cilantro, dill, basil

Meat for shish kebab

lamb – kidney part, cut into long oblong pieces weighing up to 500 g
lamb kidneys (one per skewer)
if you don’t accept lamb, so be it, take pork, but remember that this is sacrilege, although it is also very tasty!

We immerse the meat in the marinade for 3-4 to 6-8 hours, remove the membranes from the kidneys (it’s a good idea to soak them for a couple of hours beforehand). We cut small onions in half, take small tomatoes - whole.

Thread meat, onion, tomato and kidney onto a skewer. If the pieces of meat are not very long, then you can alternate onions, tomatoes and pieces of meat. The shish kebab is grilled for 20-30 minutes over coals, carefully sprinkled with dry wine. If you take it in a rather thick piece, then while frying on the outside, it may remain raw inside, so you can cut it off the skewer gradually - in portions. Serve this miracle to the table with plenty of greens, tkemali sauce and dry wine. A good cognac won’t ruin your meal either!

The author does not claim 100% authenticity of the Karski kebab recipe, since he was not at the site of the siege of the fortress, but in his distant Soviet childhood he ate it in the glorious city of Rostov-on-Don and hopes that you will like this version.

Galina Zamyslova , etoya.ru

Photo: latoro.com, delish.com, everydayrussian.com, doukhobor.org, travelnews.am, georgefamily.net

Features of the dish

For this dish, only lamb meat is used. But this is not what fundamentally distinguishes Karski kebab from the rest. The point is that here you only need the loin, or rather its kidney part, the pulp, which contains many transverse bones. Lamb kidneys are also used to prepare this dish.

Classic recipe

Ingredients	Quantity
Lamb adrenal meat -	1 kg
Lamb kidneys -	4 things.
Large onion -	2 pcs.
Tomato -	4 things.
Green onions -	1 bunch
Dried basil -	1 tsp
Vodka -	100 ml
Kefir -	300 ml
Lemon juice -	1 tsp
Salt and pepper -	taste
Cooking time: 600 minutes	Calorie content per 100 grams: 90 Kcal

Karski-style lamb shish kebab should be prepared as follows:

Rinse the lamb pulp well in water, divide into 4 approximately equal parts, removing all films and fat from them;
Cut each piece, this will help the meat better absorb the marinade;
Cut the onion into half rings of medium thickness;
Chop a bunch of green onions;
In a large deep bowl, mix the onions and green onions, crush them a little with your hands (to release the juice), sprinkle them with salt and pepper to taste;
Pour the required amount of vodka and kefir into a bowl, mix all the ingredients;
Place the lamb into the resulting marinade, cover with a lid or cling film, and set aside;
Proceed to preparing the kidneys: you need to remove the outer film from them, you will also need to remove all ducts and connective tissue;
Make cross cuts on each kidney;
The buds should be placed in water for 1.5 hours, after which the old water should be drained and new water should be added;
You need to change the water three times, add lemon juice to the last water, leave to marinate for another 1 hour;
After the kidneys have been marinated, they must be transferred to a bowl with meat, after which all ingredients must be marinated together for about 4-5 hours;
Thread lamb pulp onto a skewer (1 skewer - 1 piece), secure it with one tomato on one side, and a lamb kidney on the other;
Cook the shish kebab for 15-20 minutes on the grill.

Chafan salad recipe with photos and step-by-step recommendations. Try several variations of this dish.

Read on to learn how to make a delicious lentil soup recipe.

How long to cook chicken legs until done. You will find our tips useful for preparing a variety of dishes.

What to marinate in

Standard variations of marinades for “karsky” are not very suitable. Firstly, we remember the peculiar smell of lamb, which it is advisable to eliminate. Secondly, the kidney cut is softer than others, and most of the components of conventional marinades can make the meat tougher. Traditionally, the following composition is used: about half a liter of unrefined and unflavored vegetable oil, plus one hundred grams of cognac (vodka is possible) and spices: nutmeg, barberry (or sumac), basil, salt and pepper. When marinating, the meat is sprinkled with chopped herbs and onion rings and thickened a little. Those who wish can replace the oil with low-fat kefir, but the marinating time will be slightly longer.

Karski style pork shashlik

This dish can be prepared in a more conventional way using pork. For this adapted recipe you will also need the following:

Products	Their number
Pork (preferably neck)	300 gr
Bulb onions	2 pcs (1 for marinade and 1 for frying)
Tomato	1 PC
Pork fat mesh	Quantity at your discretion (1 mesh per 1 skewer)
Vegetable oil	80 gr
Cognac	20 gr
Mineral water	50 gr
Lemon	¼ whole fruit
Seasonings and spices, salt, pepper	Taste

It will take about 30 minutes to prepare the marinade. The marinating process itself will take 3 hours. It takes only 20 minutes to prepare the kebab. The calorie content of 100 grams of this product is 184 kcal.

How to prepare the dish:

Rinse the meat in water, cut into thin slices;
Peel one onion and cut into thin half rings;
Place the prepared onion in a deep bowl, add salt, pepper and any spices that suit the meat;
Pour the required amount of cognac, as well as vegetable oil and mineral water into the onions and spices;
Squeeze the juice from a quarter of a lemon there;
Place the pork in the resulting marinade and crush it thoroughly together with the contents of the marinade using your hands;
Leave the pork to marinate for 3 hours;
Meanwhile, peel the second onion and cut it into quarters;
Chop the tomato in the same way;
Place a piece of meat on a skewer, then a slice of tomato and a quarter of onion;
Wrap the contents of the skewer in fatty pork mesh;
Grill shish kebab for about 20 minutes.

How to make it from lamb

Be that as it may, the most traditional option is lamb kebab. For its preparation, adrenal tenderloin and fat tail fat are used. Let's look at one of the recipes.

Product set:

lamb – 2 kg;
lard – 500 g;
onions – 8-10 pcs.;
parsley, cilantro, dill, basil;
lemon – 1 pc.;
cognac – 2-3 tbsp. spoons;
grape vinegar - 1-2 tbsp. spoons;
salt, black pepper - to taste.

Technology:

Wash the lamb tenderloin, remove the tendons and cut into large oblong pieces weighing from 250 to 500 g. Try to keep all the pieces approximately the same size. Make small cuts on them to distribute the marinade evenly.
Cut fat tail fat into pieces half the size of lamb.
Chop the onion and greens very finely so that there is as much juice as possible.
In a separate bowl, mix greens and onions, salt and spices. Add cognac, vinegar and lemon juice. Mix everything well.
Place meat, lard and marinade mixture on the bottom of the pan. Mix everything again and leave to marinate for 4-8 hours in a cool place.
After a certain time, free the tenderloin from the marinade and thread it onto skewers, alternating with lard. Fry over hot coals for 20-25 minutes.

Fat tail fat prevents the lamb from drying out over the fire, so the meat turns out very juicy.

Delicious sauce recipe

In general, you can choose absolutely any sauce for this kebab, however, none of them will emphasize the taste of the kebab as much as a special sauce for Karski kebab will. To prepare it, you need the following products:

What do you need	In what quantity
Bulb onions	1 PC
Apple	1 PC
Mango	1 PC
Lime	1 PC
Tomato	1 PC
Sugar	½ tsp.
Olive oil	For refueling
Salt, pepper, Tabasco sauce	Taste

Preparing the barbecue dressing will take about 20 minutes. Calorie content per 100 g is 370 kcal.

Step by step recipe:

Peel and finely chop the onion, then pour boiling water over it, then cold water (this will remove all the bitterness and sharp taste from it);
Peel the apple, remove the middle and cut into small pieces;
Also peel and cut the mango into small cubes;
Remove the peel from the tomato, after which it also needs to be chopped;
You must first zest the lime and then squeeze out the juice;
In a common deep bowl, mix all the ingredients received, add the required amount of sugar, salt, pepper, add Tabasco and season everything with olive oil.

Required Ingredients

To prepare, you will need 500 grams of pork entrecote, two carrots, two onions, 200 grams of chopped champignons or other mushrooms, 200 grams of sour cream, spices and salt to taste, 60 grams of vegetable or olive oil.

Cooking instructions

First, fry the carrots and onions in vegetable or olive oil. Pre-cut the vegetables into strips. The pork meat should be juicy and soft; marinate it first. Please note that the entrecote must be at room temperature for cooking. It’s great if you can marinate pork for at least 8-9 hours. For the marinade, use coriander, basil, parsley, marjoram, paprika, mustard, ginger, white and black pepper. Top this mixture with onion, salt and olive oil. Rub the entrecotes with the mixture and place them in a cool place to marinate. Please note that marinating meat is not always used. But if you have free time, you should not refuse to soak the product in spices.

Once the pork is ready, cut it into strips - not too thin. Add spices and a little salt. Don't forget that the meat is already marinated. Add fried onions and carrots to the pork. Add sour cream and chopped mushrooms. Heat the frying pan and simmer the food. Please note that the fire should be slow. The simmering process will take 30 minutes.

Once the meat is stewed, place it on a bowl and garnish with olives and herbs. The best accompaniment to the dish would be mashed potatoes or French fries. You should eat Karski-style meat while it is still hot.

May 17, 2021 428

Kebabs have already become a good tradition for all lovers of outdoor recreation or owners of country plots. There are a great variety of ways to marinate meat, depending on whether it is chicken, pork or lamb.

Below we will describe several ways to cook meat “karski style”; this is the recipe most preferred by those who have tried it at least once.

Cooking tips

If the piece of meat is whole, and you plan to put it on a skewer, then it is advisable to cut off the finished meat as it is fried, and finish frying the rest. This way, you can avoid the awkward situation with undercooked kebab.

Karski-style shashlik involves the presence of only lamb and only its adrenal part. However, the same recipe can be used to prepare regular pork without changing the marinade recipe.

Instead of vodka, you can add cognac and dry white wine to the marinade.

Pork with mushrooms in sour cream sauce. Step-by-step recipe with photos

With the help of sour cream sauce, you can make any dish even more tasty and appetizing. This applies to many main courses made from vegetables and meat. In sour cream sauce, meatballs, meatballs, hedgehogs, liver, chicken fillet, meat, squid, mushrooms, lazy cabbage rolls, and buckwheat are incredibly tasty.

There are quite a lot of sour cream-based sauce recipes, which clearly demonstrates its popularity. Along with the above products, meat stewed in sour cream is no less tasty. Thanks to lactic acid contained in sour cream, even hard meat will become soft and juicy.

Pork with mushrooms in sour cream sauce is a tasty and satisfying dish that does not require much time or effort. In this recipe I used champignons, although you can use any other mushrooms. The taste of meat with mushrooms is reminiscent of the well-known julienne. If you like julienne, then I think you will also like this dish.

"Native" version

Whatever one may say, lamb is a unique meat and not acceptable to everyone. So our people have developed Karski-style pork kebab. The cut is taken as for a regular barbecue, but it is cut radically differently: the washed and dried meat is cut into long, twenty centimeters, not very thick slices. The marinade is made taking into account the “Kara” taste; for it, four onions are cut into half rings (for 800 grams of pork) and poured with a mixture of a shot of cognac, half a glass (about 150 ml) of olive oil, a spoonful of lemon juice and two soy sauce. Spices include black pepper, chili, coriander and marjoram. The ratio is free, decide for yourself. The meat is immersed in the marinade and “massaged” a little in it. You need to age the pork for four hours, but it is not prohibited to leave it overnight.

Let's move on to frying. Place half of a medium-sized tomato on a skewer (you can also take other vegetables, such as eggplant slices), followed by pork along the slice, and secure with the other half of the tomato. The structure is wrapped in fat mesh - it is sold in any good butcher shop - and sent to the grill. After 20 minutes you can savor it.

Cooking from liver in a frying pan

Shish kebab is prepared not only from meat, but also from liver. To get the perfect result, we will adhere to the rules for selecting components and follow the described procedure.

Product set:

beef or lamb liver – 500-700 g;
fat mesh;
kefir – 300 ml;
black pepper, ground red – 1/2 tsp;
salt.

Technology:

Rinse the liver well, remove film and ducts. Cut into small cubes, approximately 4x5 cm.
Place in a bowl, add salt, spices, and add kefir. Mix everything well and marinate for 2 hours in the refrigerator.
Before frying, thread the liver pieces onto wooden skewers. Wrap each kebab in fat mesh.
Place the skewers with the liver in a frying pan heated with a little oil and fry over medium heat, turning occasionally. When the liver is fried on all sides, reduce the heat and simmer for another 5-10 minutes until cooked.

The secret to tender and juicy liver skewers is to wrap them in fat mesh, which prevents the liver from becoming dry and tough. And marinating in kefir helps remove excess bitterness and makes the kebabs softer.

The best sauce for “karsky”

You also need to know how to serve kebab in Karski style: ordinary sauces, of course, won’t spoil it at all, but they will dull the taste and make it quite primitive. It’s better to do a little work and prepare an unusual sauce for an unusual kebab.

The onion is finely chopped, scalded and doused with cold water - excessive harshness and bitterness are not needed here.
Peeled apple and mango are finely chopped. You can grate it, but in this sauce the piquancy is in the pieces.
The tomato is peeled and also finely crumbled.
The zest is removed from the lime and the juice is squeezed out.
All prepared ingredients are mixed, seasoned with olive oil (the sauce should be thick), half a spoon of sugar, pepper, salt and Tabasco.

The expected taste is spicy and sweet-sour. You need to adjust flavors in accordance with your preferences, but with the same products.