Le Bab - The Modern Kebab

Contents

About the Book

The ultimate late night take away dish gets a new lease of life in this fabulous cookbook. Scrap the greasy kebab made from unknown and unexciting ingredients, and instead indulge in delicious, flavour-packed dishes made the right way and using the best ingredients.

With over 60 accessible recipes including ideas for Mezze, Basics, Kebabs, Mains and Cocktails, these dishes can be made at home and paired together to create a feast for your family and friends and fit for any occasion.

Taking inspiration from their culinary training and focusing on provenance, seasonality and technique, Le Bab have reinvented the classics as well as creating completely ingenious new combinations. From Cauliflower pastilla, Endive and pomegranate salad, and Merguez and chickpea ragu, to kebabs that include Grilled mackerel with dill, pickle and fennel, Spring chicken with sprouting broccoli and harissa mayo and Winter pork with beetroot relish, charred cabbage and crackling. There are recipes suitable for vegetarians and vegans, along with a wide variety of both meats and fish.

The Modern Kebab comes from chefs who trained in Michelin starred kitchens and wanted to share their love of the flexibility and flavours of the kebab. A modern restaurant in Soho, Le Bab share their gourmet recipes for fresh, accessible and delicious kebabs.

About the Author

Le Bab is one of Londons hottest restaurants, moving the humble kebab from late night drunk snack to haute-cuisine. Owners Stephen and Ed were inspired by the rustically delicious kebabs they had eaten on their travels and opened the restaurant in January 2016. They were joined by biology graduate and head chef Manu Canales who brings his scientific knowledge to bear in his highly technical approach to cookery.

Introduction

Friends Stephen Tozer and Ed Brunet loved kebabs. They loved the simple gastronomic concept of charcoal-grilled meats with soft, chewy flatbreads and piquant salads. They were inspired by the rustically delicious kebabs they had eaten abroad, but they wanted more than they had found back home.

Kebabs, like most ancient dishes, are a product of terroir. Their traditional form was dictated by the best, most beautiful, naturally occurring ingredients. Wild and extensively farmed animals provided the meat. Garnishes came from seasonal or preserved vegetables, fruits and herbs plants cultivated without chemicals and outside artificial environments. Open fires that were fuelled by wood from the same land, and necessary for human subsistence, were used to cook them.

And this is the way that all food should be. When food emanates from good and natural ingredients, it tastes best. Fruits and vegetables taste best when they are at their freshest, and have been grown without coercion. Preserves taste best when they are made from the best fruits and vegetables. Meat is at its best when it comes from animals that have grown at a steady pace, on a proper diet, in expansive conditions. Beyond ingredients, fire-cooking has a special primal significance to us. As the earliest means of heating food, fire has been present through the entire history of cookery. Smell (as opposed to taste, or texture) is the one constituent of flavour with the ability to trigger memories in the brain. While the high heat of fire-grilling produces caramelised, umami-heavy flavour via the Maillard reaction, fire cookings unique contribution to food is aromatisation. The flavour conferred only by fire is experienced predominantly via our sense of smell. Consequently, it taps into our evolutionary food instincts in a unique way.

In kebabs, Stephen and Ed also saw an opportunity to use modern techniques and approaches to elevate a dish uniformly coloured by tradition. While tradition in food holds huge value, if observed too rigorously it can also represent a constraint. Fresh ideas and techniques at the forefront of gastronomic thinking are continuously unlocking new and improved ways of enjoying our food. A sympathetic application of modern cookery can elevate even the greatest traditional dishes.

Stephen and Ed wanted to eat kebabs that obeyed these principles. They wanted modern, fire-cooked kebabs. They wanted kebabs that delivered maximally intense flavour by honouring the terroir of where they were served, and using excellent local meat. Kebabs like this did not exist. So they founded Le Bab. Joined by Manu Canales and Angus Bell, they began to experiment with a new kind of kebab. In January 2016 they opened their first restaurant in Soho, London.

Le Bab is simply about trying to make kebabs as good as they can be. At the epicentre of the project is a resolute belief in the primacy of ingredients in good food, and in the primacy of terroir in good ingredients. We seek to lovingly turn these ingredients into kebabs using the best possible ideas and techniques; we want to cook them, marry them and mingle them with maximum skill and imagination. We can distil this into three interlinked core tenets: ingredients, concept and technique.

INGREDIENTS

The UK is not a motherland of the kebab. Its cool winters and tepid, often rainy summers mean it is not a natural home to the ingredients of traditional kebabs. Only hardier plants can survive the winter frosts. The fruits and vegetables of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East struggle to thrive outside the height of summer, if at all.

However, the UK is a producer of phenomenal meat, fish, vegetables and fruit. We seek to utilise these ingredients when they are at their best. Our proteins, vegetables and fruits form the major backbone of taste in our dishes, and so their quality is always of the utmost importance.

Pastoral farming practices in the UK lead the world. We have a wealth of meat produced by farmers that resolutely pursue optimal flavour, through meticulous breeding and rearing. The British countryside is home to exceptional and diverse wild game. And our butchers are masters of hanging and dry-ageing.

Britains seafood is also world class. British waters are cold and clean. Their temperatures mean a good concentration of oxygen, lower solubility of toxins, and a lower growth of pathogenic microbes than in warmer waters. Fish and shellfish benefit from the cool, strong currents of the Atlantic coast, growing slowly and proliferating higher amounts of omega-3 fatty acids. We also have a strong culture of sustainable fishing, with a large number of day boats providing supremely fresh catches.

While the UK could not claim to be a world leader in arable produce, we do produce exceptional brassica and root vegetables. Our wet summers also mean lighter produce that might traditionally be associated with kebabs tomatoes and lettuce are produced to an excellent standard for a few months each year.

We feel compelled to utilise these excellent ingredients. We eschew the approach of importing ingredients from abroad to avoid a seasonal dearth of certain ingredients. In doing so we celebrate and encourage excellent farming practices, and minimise environmental impact.

We urge you to go out and shop seasonally, trying to construct your food from produce grown and reared naturally and as close to home as possible.

CONCEPT

We work backwards from the best ingredients available to us to the concept of each dish we serve. This provides a framework for concept and design. We also seek to deliver food that excites and surprises people, and obeys certain gastronomic principles to deliver the best eating experience and make people feel like they are consuming an authentic kebab.