Lula kebab — Armenia

Lula kebab is a minced-meat kebab molded onto flat metal skewers and grilled over embers. The Armenian name (լուլա քյաբաբ, lula kʿyabab) and the Azerbaijani name (lülə kabab) point to a shared word for the tube-shaped patty of meat pressed around the skewer. It belongs to the broad family of skewered minced-meat kebabs found across the Caucasus, Anatolia and the Levant, where similar preparations appear under other names such as kofte or kebab kubideh. On AllGastronomy, this dish is recorded from Armenia and from Azerbaijan; each place keeps its own page, its own ingredient list and its own way of serving the dish, and neither is presented as a model for the other. To prepare it, meat — lamb, beef, or a mix of the two — is minced very finely, sometimes together with a little tail fat, onion and garlic, then kneaded by hand until the mixture becomes smooth and sticky enough to hold its shape. Cooks press a portion around a wide, flat skewer, forming a long sausage-like log, and grill it over hot charcoal, turning it often so it cooks evenly without drying out. In Armenia, the kebab is commonly seasoned with black pepper and sometimes a little cumin or coriander, and grilled alongside tomatoes, peppers and onions that char over the same fire. It is served wrapped in lavash bread with the grilled vegetables, raw onion rings sprinkled with sumac, and fresh herbs such as basil or tarragon, occasionally finished with a drizzle of pomegranate molasses.