Beef Kebabs

What’s a summer grill without beef kebabs? Top sirloin chunks, marinated in soy sauce, garlic, ginger, olive oil marinade, grilled with onions, mushrooms, bell peppers.

How is it that two people can remember things so differently?

If you ask my mother she’ll say she’s only made beef kebabs a couple times in her life.

If you ask me, one of my favorite childhood memories is my mother’s kebabs (or kabobs), cooked over the little cast iron hibachi grill my parents had on the back porch.

My most vivid memory of them was the time I was recovering from pneumonia, hadn’t eaten anything for 3 weeks, and was allowed for the first time to sip some broth. And sip I did while the rest of the family ate beautiful, smoky, meaty, hearty, beefy kebabs.

It. Was. So. Unfair. I can still smell them now. There was nothing I wanted more in the world at that moment than those kebabs. Sigh.

Funny, the emotional ties we can have with food, isn’t it?

I love, really truly love beef kebabs.

Why? They’re fun, they’re on a stick.

You can make your own, just they way you want them (lots of mushrooms please). If you’ve marinated the meat properly (several hours or preferably overnight), they’re the most juicy wonderful morsels you could possibly eat.

A few tips that will help ensure your kebabs turn out well. Marinate the meat, the longer the better. Use double skewers to make them easier to turn.

Use bamboo or wooden skewers so that the inside of the steak pieces stay nice and pink. Keep a little space between the items (more space than shown in the photo above, I sort of forgot that part when I did the batch pictured), so that the food grills versus steams.

Most important, keep an eye on them! Do a finger test for doneness, or if the grill is too hot, tap the meat with the end of your tongs to see how much its giving. The meat and veggies will continue to cook a little once you’ve taken them off the grill and they are resting, so keep that in mind.

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