In another thread I said I would take the recipe to my grave but NCPaul asked me to close the debate so while my meat is chilling after chopping to make more sausages I will attempt to do so.
A similar recipe has already been posted and is all over the net,there's also a good video by the Two Hairy Bikers on youtube,but I used to watch it being made in a London kebab shop and ate it twice a day.
Bear with me,it's a long story.
It begins in 1982,I was asked to replaster and retile the outside toilet of a kebab shop in South Wimbledon and completely retile the food preparation area where the "gyros" were made.
I had to work on one side while the boys making the kebabs worked on the other.
HSE wouldn't let you get away with it these days,the outside toilet or building work in the food prep area.
This kebab shop opened at 11am and closed at 11pm,in those days pub closing time was 10.30pm so the problems often associated with kebab shops like the drunks didn't exist.
It was a family affair,the father and two sons,the boys as I remember were 20 and 17 and used to make that days kebabs early in the morning,nothing was bought ready made,frozen or otherwise,it was all fresh.
If I remember right the meat for the next day was prepared the morning before and marinaded ready for the next day and fresh meat,veg and salad stuff came in daily,the father saw to that side,they didn't have a freezer,just two great big fridges at the back of the food prep area.
Great big cans like old petrol tins of probably not the best olive oil were stacked in a corner with cases of onion juice and lemon juice.
Out the back door in the alley on the way to the toilet were tubs of waste fat from the fryer lined up against a wall.
I used to come in about 8am and the boys would already be at work,the younger would be prepping meat and making both chilli and garlic sauce while the older was building the gyros on the upright skewers.
The last thing they did was put together that days kofte and shish.
The marinade for the doner as I remember was olive oil,onion juice,lemon juice,salt and black pepper,nothing more.
The meat for the doner was a mix of lamb leg,shoulder,and breast.
They made the mince/ground meat from the fresh offcuts in a big old grinder.
Pieces of leg,shoulder and breast were flattened and marinaded the day before then layered on the skewer that morning,the breast being used for the fat layer,the ground lamb was used between the layers.
No rusk,binders or emulsifiers were used in the doner meat,the only spice was salt and pepper.
The end result was superb and no grease was ever seen in the pan at the bottom of the spit,all the fat was perfectly melded into the meat by building it correctly in the first place.
And I never saw anything but a fresh one go on the spit every morning.
I used to get a bit peeved as I had to wait until 11am for my breakfast!
I'm a big fan of doner,the best I've had since the one above was from a van behind the Co-Op in Tenterden a few years ago when I lived there but it wasn't a patch on the above,it did have the meanest chilli sauce I've ever tasted though,that stuff would take your face off!
I used to get the huge mixed kebab on a Friday night with extra pita,chilli and garlic sauce and eat the remains cold for breakfast,if you haven't tried that in the morning with a hangover you haven't lived!
I'm a great lover of chicken doner too but my London shop didn't do it,they only had the one spit and everything was fresh every day,and it was a very busy little shop.
I have tried making it but with no real success yet,it just doesn't work on horizontal skewers making small amounts.
It kind of tastes the same but the texture is wrong,you need to go the whole hog,or should I say whole sheep,and cook it on a vertical skewer,it doesn't work any other way for doner meat.
It's the way it was built,the guys knew where to put what in the layers so it all just melted through perfectly.
Nowadays it's all crap ground meat bought frozen from a factory.
There you go,I haven't given you the recipe but I've told you how I've seen it done and what goes in it.
The rest is up to you.
Oh,if anyone wants the authentic recipe for London Pie & mash & liquor I've been making that for years and know a few old secrets passed on to me.
I don't do the eels though
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)
But I do make the pies and liquor
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
BM