Losh Kebab
A hamburger with Armenian spices.
Servings: 5
Equipment
- knife or food processor
- grill or broiler
Ingredients
Losh (Burgers)
- 2 lbs. Ground Beef (or 50/50 mix of Ground Lamb and Ground Beef) 80-85% lean
- 4 Tablespoons Tomato Paste
- 3/4 cup Parsley chopped
- 3/4 cup Scallions, white and green chopped into 1/4 inch or smaller pieces
- 4 cloves Garlic minced
- 2 teaspoons Kosher Salt
- 1 teaspoon Allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon Cumin
- 1 teaspoon Aleppo or Marash Pepper
For Serving
- enough pita bread, hard rolls or hamburger buns for the amount of patties you are making
- About 2 cups of chopped parsley and onion for serving
Instructions
- Put the ground beef into a large bowl. on top of one side of the meat, put the tomato paste, parsley, scallions, garlic, kosher salt, allspice, cumin and Aleppo pepper. Fold over the ground meat from the opposite side and mix with hands until just incorporated (the purpose of all of this is so the tomato paste and spices don't end up all over your hands and instead get mixed in). Don't over mix.
- Form the meat mixture into round shaped patties for rolls or buns or ovals for pita bread halves.
- Grill patties until they are about medium or lightly pink on the inside.
- Serve losh kebab in pita bread or on rolls with chopped onion and parsley in it.
Modifications
I did start out the dinner in a smart way by rationing my energy and spreading the work out. Around lunch time I measured out all my spices and tomato paste into a Pyrex bowl, so I could do some of the prep work earlier in the day when I have more energy and divide it up from the last minute dinner prep. This was really the end of my intelligence and forethought for the day.
About an hour or so before dinner I chopped the parsley in the food processor first. I put the parsley into a small bowl to divide some up for the chopped salad I was also making, and put the garlic in the food processor next because I knew it was unnecessary to wash the bowl in between since it was all going the same place. I used the kitchen shears to cut the scallions as it is steadier than a knife right now. Did you know that kitchen shears are also a good way to cut Pita bread for everybody?
I ended up having to cut the salad things, on the bed, on a towel, on a large tray because I could barely move anymore and decided that I needed to rest for 30 minutes (more like 3 hours but I wasn't thinking clearly at this point) and then couldn't get up and get back to the kitchen. I was done. The lesson that I take from this is to make a better plan first thing in the morning and to spread out more of the labor to earlier in the day.
This was a night I could have my husband grill since I can't really get up close to the grill in the wheelchair and it doesn't seem particularly safe to do so anyway. I have also cooked these under the broiler, turning them halfway.