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Kebab

A skewered meat dish served in bread with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Kebab

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the skewers

  1. Cut the meat into nut-sized pieces.

  2. Thread a piece of meat onto an iron skewer, followed by a piece of fat, then a vegetable, and repeat until the skewer is full.

  3. Season with pepper and salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Toast the skewers by the fire until roasted.

  2. Cut open a roll or flat piece of new bread.

  3. Remove the kebabs from the skewers and place them inside the bread.

  4. Pour gravy over the kebabs and serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + tomatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tender meat
Provides the main protein and chewy, savoury bulk of the filling.
Fat
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the meat from drying out over the fire.
Vegetables
Add moisture and mild sweetness, and brown slightly when roasted.
New bread
Holds the kebabs and soaks up gravy and meat juices.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the finished kebabs.

The step that matters

Toasting the skewers by the fire. Roasting over direct heat browns the surface and cooks the meat through, while fat and moisture keep the pieces from drying out. Too little heat leaves the meat underdone; too much chars the outside before the centre is cooked.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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