Kebab and Its Origins: History, Tradition, and Global Popularity

Kebab is the street food that has conquered everyone, with its unique taste and its practicality of production thanks to the gyros machines professional kebab cooker.

The origin of kebab: a bit of history

The word kebab is of Persian origin, probably it was invented in the Middle Ages by Persian soldiers who used their swords as a skewer to grill meat on fire.

Kebab is a typical dish of the Middle East where the lack of fuel for cooking large foods made people use small pieces of meat, so that we consume less wood.

The term kebab means "grilled" or "roasted" in reference to the strips of meat sautéed on a hot plate, made even more succulent by the fat that is leached as a condiment.

The cooking and production of kebab is different in each culture, let’s analyze some variations:

    • GREECE:  The traditional gyros kebab in Greece, made with pork meat topped with tzatziki sauce, yoghurt and cucumbers, tomatoes, chips and onion.

    • TURKEY: In Turkey, kebab is served on a plate with chicken or lamb slices, rice and vegetables. The spices usually used to flavor meat are cumin, coriander, cardamom and the most popular accompaniment sauce is thaini, a sesame-based sauce. In Italy the most popular and appreciated version of kebab is the dürüm kebab, that is the one served in the Turkish piadina.

    • INDIA:  Reducing kebab to a single recipe would be impossible. For example, in Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India, is the world’s most fluffy kebab prepared with flavored minced meat. In the same region, in Lucknow, there is a famous Tunde ke Kebab which we could call "Nababbi kebab" prepared with buffalo meat marinated in yogurt.

     • EGYPT: The Egyptian kebab is prepared by roasting lamb in butter, then adding onions, tomatoes and peppers and to enrich the taste of flavors are used spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, which make the dish fragrant.

    • EUROPE AND USA: starting from the basic recipe, to which you can add other ingredients, sauces and spices for kebab, This dish was introduced in Germany by Turkish immigrants in the late 1960s, meeting the favor and esteem of the Germans. In England too, kebab had historical roots in 1966 when it was served at a kebab diner in Stoke Newington, north east of London. By the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, however, kebab had a great spread throughout the European continent and then in the United States.

    • ITALY: In Italy kebab is widespread and appreciated everywhere. In some cities like Turin and Milan are very renowned restaurants that offer a more refined version, a gourmet kebab obtained by mixing the tradition of quality Italian products, for meat, bread and seasonings. As in Turkey, the most popular sauces are thaini, spicy harissa, chickpea hummus and tzatziki, which is found in somig.

The kebab machine is essential in the preparation of kebabs in any way you want to serve it.

You can find different models with gas or electric power, of various sizes. Gas models can have 6,8 or 16 burners, electric models can have 4, 6, 8 or 10 resistors. The distance of the skewer rod from the resistors or burners can be adjusted.

All the gyrosoffered on www.ristorazione-refrigerazione.it are professional machines in stainless steel of quality and with regular CE conformity certification.