Kebabs (kebabs, kababs, kebobs, kabobs, kibobs, kebhavs, or kephav) are designations for a variety of grilled / grilled meat dishes stabbed with punctures or iron bars. This dish is commonly found in Mediterranean cuisine, Caucasian cuisine, Central Asian cuisine, South Asian cuisine, and the cuisine of several African countries.

The meat commonly used for kebabs is lamb and beef, or sometimes mutton, chicken, fish, or shellfish. Pork kebabs are known in the cuisine of Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, and the state of Goa in India.

Etymology Edit

The name kebab comes from Arabic: kabab (کباب) which originally means fried meat, not roasted / grilled meat.The word kabab probably comes from the Aramaic: כבבא kabbābā which may be derived from Akkadian: kabābu which means "toast, roast". In the 14th century, kebabs became synonymous with tabahajah, a dish of fried pieces in Persian. In Turkish books, the term kebab is often used for meat balls made from chicken meat or minced lamb. The term new kebab means roast beef (shish kebab) since the Ottoman Empire, but there is still another more ancient term for roast beef, ie shiwa` (شواء) from Arabic. However, kebabs are still used in the original sense in dishes such as stews, such as kebab bags (kebabs in a bowl) from Turkey. In Egyptian cuisine there is a dish of beef stew and onion called kebab halla.

References

^ Davidson, Alan (1999). Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 429.
^ "Semitic roots of kbb". The American Heritage Dictionary. Retrieved 2008-03-16.
^ Nasrallah, Nawal (2007). Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens: Ibn Sayyâr al-Warrâq's Tenth-century Baghdadi Cookbook. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. ISBN 978-9004158672.