The old Doner Kebab quest,solved perhaps?

[Bangermuncher]

I know the old thread but thought it needed a new one.
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
But I do make the pies and liquor
BM

[jenny_haddow]

I'd be pleased to see your pie, mash and liquor recipe BM. I make pie and mash for my dad using Oddley's recipe and a few others I've come across, they all vary. I've used eels, added vinegar, and various passed on family tips, but I think it's one of those dishes that is a sum of many parts, its up to you to pick your favourite.

Cheers

Jen

[Bangermuncher]

I haven't seen Oddleys recipe Jenny,can you point me to it?
I can't look around now as I'm doing something for someone.
My recipe comes from a mad family member(my long deceased father who claimed we were related to the Manzes,a total fabrication but he did work in a Pie & Mash shop)and two ladies who used to work in the same Pie & Mash shop in the 40's and 50's but not at the same time.
Harringtons,Selkirk Road,Tooting,SW London.
Okay here I go quickly.
There are a load of myths about the liquor,it doesn't have the juice from the stewed eels in it nor does it have peas in it as some think to give the green colour.
It really is just parsley sauce but made with water not milk,nowadays I think they add a little milk but it was pretty scarce then.
A not bad replica is packet parsley sauce,just use water instead of milk,it's the water that gives it the colour and opacity.

The pie meat now is minced beef and has been for decades but it doesn't taste anywhere near the Pie & Mash I grew up on and I can remember my first in 1964,I was 4 years old,my father bet me I wouldn't like the liquor because it was green.
He never tried to gamble with me again
That was on the same wooden benches and marble tabletops that are still there today.
Back about 1977 someone told me the original pie meat was mutton,not beef and suddenly it was that "Eureka moment".
We used to get mutton when I was a kid,we were just told it was lamb.
So I made pies with minced/ground lamb in the absence of mutton and BINGO!
That was it.
I don't put any gravy in the pies,just meat and onions.
You don't need gravy with the liquor.
The pastry is rough puff.
Don't use store bought pastry,it doesn't work,it has to be rough puff and I don't need to tell you how easy that is to make.
I line the pie tins and top off with the same pastry,no point doing it with just a pastry crust.

Vinegar.
As I know Pie & Mash bottles of chilli infused vinegar were on every table but for takeaway non brewed condiment was available
You can't eat it without a liberal splashing of vinegar and a good dusting of white pepper.
You put the vinegar on it,not in it.
My tastebuds are doing somersaults just thinking about it!
The vinegar turns the liquor into something so addictive I can't describe.
I used to have two pie,four mash,and double liquor,and it wasn't unknown for me to go back up for seconds!

I know it sounds and looks repulsive to some but if you haven't tried it...well you know the old saying.
I once took a mate there around 1979.
Posh boy trying to be a bricklayer.
His comment.
"I think it's very nice that this shop feeds all the poor people for 80p but I can't eat this muck".
I haven't seen him since,I think he's still in hiding.
BM

[johnfb]

High FW did went to one of these shops on TV once....this is really an English thing I think as we don't have anything like it over here.
Looks interesting though.

[Bangermuncher]

High falootin' what's his face probably caught a size 12 up the jacksie and never dared go back.
You don't have pies in Ireland John?
I was thinking of moving there,but no pies?
Who ate them all?
The Australian version is the pie floater,pie and peas,not a patch on ours,which BTW if you believe everything you read isn't English at all.
It's Italian.
Nearly.
http://www.manze.co.uk/Facts&Fame.html
Robert Cooke opened the first pie shop.
But this was roughly around the time of Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd(yes I know they were a few decades apart but passing on old skills/tricks?)
I wonder what really went in those early pies

[Oddley]

Hi BM,
Here, is my recipe, for pie and mash. Personally, I reckon the liqueur is better made from the water the eels were cooked in, it's just got a better flavour. I know in the past, the eels were cheap, so I would have thought to save money heating water, they would use the water they had already heated for the eels. I very well may be wrong.

By coincidence, I am going to make Pie and mash tomorrow. Awhile ago, I bought about 20 pie and mash, pie tins, off a supplier on ebay. You can't beat the pies made at the proper size.

I believe that originally the pies were eel pies, because pie and mash was a cheap meal for the working class. The Thames was full of eels at the time.

Click here for a history.

On another note, my local pie and mash in Camden, now make it's pies with a quorn mince filling. I no longer buy pie and mash from there. Shame!

[wheels]

The pie tins are still available if anyone wants any, they look very good value:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LARGER-PIE-TINS-F ... 27a86593a0

Phil

[jenny_haddow]

I bought some of those tins, they are just the job. Another good recipe from the past when oysters abounded in the Thames and the London apprentices complained their diet was oysters, oysters, oysters, is beef and oyster pie. I make it in France, where the oysters are plentiful, and it is divine.

Jen

[wheels]

Jenny

A good substitute for us impoverished Brits is a tin of anchovies; they add that 'je ne sais quoi' to beef pies and also steak and kidney pud.

Phil

[Bangermuncher]

Oddley,
I might have to get a few of those tins!
Yes the liquor was made with the juice from the eels but not anymore.
At Harringtons it was spelled "licker".
http://www.londoneats.com/search/comple ... rantID=839
http://www.pie-n-mash.com/results0607_04.html
People keep telling me they're not there anymore.
I just phoned them up,they're still there

When I first had it as a kid the "licker" was still made with eel juice but they haven't done that now for years.
Yep the Thames was full of eels,years ago they used to tie a horses head to a rope and leave it overnight,when they pulled it up the skull would be full of eels.
Not a fan of the eels myself,when I used to fish in the Thames as a kid the little buggers(bootlace eels)would tie my line in knots!
The only way to get them off was cut their heads off.
I grew up on Harringtons Pie & Mash and on Friday nights there was always a queue all the way round the corner.
I never did get on with the eels though,I found them tasteless so only had the pie,mash and licker.
I think another thing that put me off the eels was all the old boys taking their teeth out to noisily suck on the bones
The sight of a set of NHS dentures plonked beside the bowl opposite you is a memory not easily forgotten.

Mutton or lamb does work better in the pies,try it.
It's far closer to the original taste,now it's beef.
They might have told you it was all beef originally but it wasn't.
And yes the original pies were eel pies but that was long before my time.

I can now take some of my teeth out to gurn with my food
In fact I never have them in to eat,must go for a Pie & Mash and see if I can gross someone out.
Rites of passage

[johnfb]

So based on the ingredients that BM gave us, does anyone want to chance a % breakdown on the list per kilo???

john

[Oddley]

BM, I think you are crazy not liking eels, I think they are a delicacy. I have got to say they are a bit like marmite, you either love them or hate them.

When I was a Kid, I went away with the school to dorset, Swanage, and the hostel we were staying at gave us a pack lunch, the main ingredient being one marmite sandwich. I hated it, but had to eat it because I was starving. There was no mercy in this era, you ate what you were given, or starved. My tastes have changed with age and I actually like Marmite. So do I like eels.

[Bangermuncher]

Oddley,
I take exception at being called crazy,I was once given a little green card signed by several psychiatrists that stated I am not crazy
I am however totally bonkers!
It's not so much I don't like the eels,I'll eat almost any fish,I just find eels bland to my taste.
I used to catch them as a kid in the 60's at the warm water outlet at Kingston power station but it was the old man who used to eat them.
They're trying to stop people catching them now,
http://www.fenlandcitizen.co.uk/news/Pe ... 5415080.jp
And looking around some people are charging £18 a kilo.
I live in Hastings now and we have some of the best fresh fish in the country straight off the boat,we have the largest shore based fishing fleet in the country,but the only eels down here are jellied eels.
Somebody opened a Pie & Mash shop down here a few years ago,I tried it once,I might as well have been eating cardboard.

I've tried one of the Manzes shops years ago,another I tried was Maggie Browns in Battersea,another I can't remember the name of but it was in Brixton or Stockwell.
None of them came close to Harringtons.
That doesn't mean they're the best,just the best I've eaten apart from my own,Harringtons pies were always bigger than the other shops too,those pie tins look a little small to me but I'll probably get some.
I had four pie tins the right size but lost them in a move.

My licker I make pretty much the same as yours but without the eel juice and to me it tastes spot on,I've tried fish stock,it doesn't work,nobody try that,you'll destroy a perfectly good meal.
I do add a little milk but not a lot,fresh parsley is essential but I suspect most of the shops now use dried.

My pies I make similarly to yours but as I said I use minced lamb and onion,if I could get mutton or hogget I'd use that.
I do add a little gravy in the pie but not a lot,I use a Knorr lamb cube,milder than Oxo and thicken the pie mix with plain flour or cornflour,I don't use gravy granules.
My pie mix gives me a nice juicy full pie filling that stays together when you crack the pie open,not one of those pies that leaks a huge amount of gravy into the bowl,I don't actually mind that too much,I do like mixing the gravy in with the licker but I prefer my pie with very little gravy,mine gives me the most authentic taste I've had to the one I grew up on.

My pastry I make by hand,it has to be rough puff for me,store bought puff pastry is fine and it's good stuff but mine is closer to the original for me.
Never thought of cooking them in a bain marie in the oven though but I will try that though my pies have always come out fine.
I have fond memories of waiting in the queue while the lady behind the counter cried out "Pies!" and the little bloke from the kitchen downstairs would burst through the door with a huge tray that was dumped unceremoniously on the counter quickly followed by another,they were cooked so fresh that while you ate your meal this would happen about every 3-5 minutes and the cry would go up "Mash!" "Licker!" "Pies!"

My mash okay I do add a little butter to,not a lot,but if I go to a Pie & Mash shop I don't want any butter in it.
I mix it with a fork to get the right texture.
Next time I make Pie & Mash which will be soon I'll post some pics up.
I read through the original thread you posted your recipe in Oddley and it surprised me that some people could be so anal about it.
What is it about regional food that people don't want to understand?
Why do they want to change it and think they can do better?
It still rankles me to this day that years ago I posted a recipe elswhere for my Shepherds Pie.
Some twonk from a former colony said it needed beef,not lamb,and needed not only celery in the mix,but wait for this...baked beans
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
If you don't like it eat something else,I wouldn't even think about telling someone how to cook their local nosh,I would ask them how though.

Funny you mention Marmite,I don't mind it but I prefer Bovril on my toast,and our tastes do change.
There's a lot of stuff I didn't like as a kid,not much and I wasn't a fussy eater,but those things I can't get enough of now.
But at the other end there's stuff I would lap up as a kid that I can't stand now.

John,
When you asked about quantities I'm assuming you meant the doner not the pies.
I don't honestly know the quantities,only how they made it,maybe I should have paid more attention but it was nearly 30 years ago.
That was the way I saw it being made and I can honestly say it's the best doner meat I've ever eaten,this vid from the Two Hairy Bikers is almost identical,and the tail fat is important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHvrkqMei4c
Some of the links it leads you to are atrocious,including Delia taking pita straight out of the packet,opening it and filling it without putting it on the grill,and some berk in a doner factory where they destroy it by grinding all the meat,only the trimmings should be ground.
The meat and marinade I've quoted is authentic but marinades will vary,some add garlic,coriander etc but nowadays it just comes from a factory.
They just don't make them like that anymore.
I don't have the kit to replicate it properly.

Even down here in Hastings where we get fresh fish every day I've seen freezer lorrys turn up at chip shops with fish from a processing plant in Grimsby,chip shop batter comes in bags or barrels.
I'm not far from Romney Marsh,probably the best lamb in England,but unless you know where to go you won't find it.
A mate of mine recently spent 6 months in New Zealand,guess what the hardest meat to find is over there and is the most expensive if you can get it?
New Zealand lamb,it goes for export

But back to pies,one of the saddest things I see is few people making them properly anymore,a local butchers wife makes outstanding pies but Sue only makes a few a week and you have to order on the monday to get yours next day,all the meat comes from their farm.
I recently saw a poll for the favourite British foods people would like to see more of.
One was the Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie,much as I admit I love them(and have a small supply stashed away for emergencies),especially the steak and kidney puds(large size),Fray Bentos is a small town in Argentina and that is where they originate from.
I'm not going to complain though,Philistine I'm happy to be accused of when I get them for £1

[Ianinfrance]

Two comments.

Jenny, take advantage of oysters while you can. Owing to reasons which are as yet unknown, mortality among the very young oysters has been running at 90 to 95% and in two years time or even less, French supplies will be practically unobtainable.

BM. Eels. I've had them in many ways, and the only way I really dislike them is "jellied". But I don't much like vinegar, so it's not surprising, perhaps. Where they come into their own is in some of the French and Belgian fish stews, and above all, in my opinion, as smoked eels, from the Low Countries. For my money, prepared in that way, they are easily as good as the best smoked salmon, though of course are entirely different.

Yum.

[wheels]

Ian

Over here smoked eel is often more expensive than smoked salmon due to the chronic shortage of eels.

Phil