Kuzu şiş

Cubes of lamb threaded on a flat skewer and grilled over charcoal until the edges char and the centre stays pink: kuzu şiş is the plainest dish on a Turkish kebab menu and the one that exposes a kitchen fastest, because there is nothing to hide behind. The word şiş simply means skewer, and the construction is the one that gave the world the shish kebab; the Turkish version is distinguished by the cut, usually leg or shoulder of young lamb with some fat left on, by the marinade, which is restrained, and by the heat, which comes from mangal charcoal rather than gas. It is eaten across the country, but the kebab cities of the south-east, Gaziantep, Adana and Şanlıurfa, set the standard, and in Antep it is often cooked with pieces of tail fat between the meat to baste it.