One of my favorite dishes in China, mandatory to wash it down with some cold beer. So happy Lucas posted this video teaching us - can't wait to make it!
As an Australian, I'd never heard anyone describe Lamb as "gamey" until I started watching some US cooking videos on UA-cam. It's funny - we grew up with lamb, so it just tastes _like lamb_ to us lol. Outside of vegetarians and so forth, I don't know anyone who dislikes lamb. I know the US just has a _massive_ beef industry, with lamb being _relatively_ uncommon, so it really is just one of those things that depends on what you grew up with I suppose
Growing up eating it, Id say Lamb does have a gamy smell and taste especially after getting cold or reheated. It s also why when cooking lamb, spices and herbs are used more. You are probably right about not much lamb produced locally here. I only find lamb from AU and NZ.
@@KHGuitarFreak1988 but it's such a commonly consumed and domesticated meat. To me that's the same as saying beef tastes gamey. I tell you what, I very rarely eat Kangaroo meat, and it _is an actual_ game meat. Now when it's raw, it has a pretty strong gamey smell, some people find it off-putting - but once cooked it tastes and looks pretty much exactly like a lean piece of beef steak. It's very lean, so you have to be careful not to overcook it - think like a "top round" steak, but otherwise it's pretty hard to differentiate. My point is, yeah sure, lamb tastes _different_ , but chicken also tastes _different_ , as does fish and crab etc. I'd just never heard it described as "gamey". Not like Venison, or Emu or Pheasant or something. That's all.
Omg this was one of my favourite dishes living in Beijing. I've eaten this more times than I can count! It's so good to have Lucas's explain how to properly prepare and cook it! I've bbq'd quite a few yang rou chuanr since being back at home but with different recipes. Now I know more of the theory behind it to get just right. But yeah need the beer to wash it all down!
MSG is the crystalline stuff on Kombu. And there's a ton of it in chicken soup. Take a tiny pinch of MSG and a tiny pinch of salt and taste them together. Totally tastes like chicken soup without being distinctively chicken-flavored.
For those who doesn't like lamb, pork belly and chicken wings are both great for this format. Same spice mix, same technique, just grill for a little bit longer and it's good to go. In fact pretty much everything can be skewed and grilled like this as long as you know how to grill, so just go wild about it.
This is the only food from my infancy that I still remember to this day. My mother used to take me to get these skewers at the bottom of a big hill in Beijing. I haven't had these in over 3 decades but I remember the exact taste.
>In this episode of Why It Works, Lucas Sin demonstrates Hong Kong Style techniques for making the perfect omelet using all of your takeout leftovers. Copy pasted description eh? 😅
i was fortunate enough to taste this flavor, the flavor of 羊肉串, eight years ago. there were only two places that did 羊肉串 back then, and now there are at least nine. i hope they spread to the rest of the world 😊 🌎 truly, you will become hopelessly addicted to it's flavor. it becomes your favorite spice mix to throw on everything. your steaks and potato chips will end up coated with fennel and cumin. you will end up with at least one more grill than you have now, which you bought so that you could achieve restaurant quality skewers at home. your chinese friends will want to eat dinner at your place more often. learn to make 羊肉串 at home and life will be excellent
I eat Xinjiang BBQ twice a month. As living in China I can now even hear the BBQ's people downstairs haha.. Best BBQ ever, here they dipping the skewers in a sauce before grilling it and make a awesome taste.
Ah. This is the one thing i cant miss having in china when i visit. Well, this and malatang. Its also terrific that these lamb skewers are so consistently tasty anywhere you buy them. And yes, i have had people who refuse to eat lamb, eat these. The seasoning is magic.
Skip the overnight wait with regular bottled meat tenderizer (which is just papain or bromelain from papaya or pineapples respectively). Less water introduced too.
Interesting. I've had a closely related street food dish, 1/8th inch thick slices of bone-in lamb chops rubbed with cumin quickly grilled over charcoal in Ghana! The bones serve as handles for flipping on the grill an for eating. Similar to a Nigerian street food called suya made with ground peanuts and other spices. Duplicated the dish for my nieces graduation party.
hi! the linked recipe calls for “2 tablespoons… chicken powder or MSG”. to be clear, if i were using MSG, i would use 2 tablespoons of it? i often see in recipes folks use about half or less of the amount of MSG relative to salt in the recipe, so i just want to make sure the proportions are right.
I use MSG, but sometimes I use mushroom powder I have dried and ground for those scared of it. (I usually use both when I can😈 and it doesn’t seem too much)
If it was broken down then it was small enough to not injure you and cooked enough to not worry about salmonella, which is a 1 in 20,000 chance anyway. If it wasn't broken down then he obviously would have found it when he picked out pieces of meat one at a time.
Yes, but it's relatively a lot of work to get what's usually a noticeable cheaper, and easy to buy, ingredient... You don't even get the potential benefit of the flavor notes of the sea salt, because all of the other spices in the mix are intentionally much stronger.
yeah, just weight it. Grind 18 gram of sea salt (Sea salt is larger than iodized salt) to your chile powder's size. If you really don't want to buy iodized salt or grind sea salt down then leave it out of the seasoning and salt separately.
Lucas (and many other cooks online) are mistakenly calling all table salt (small cubic crystals commonly sold in cylindrical cardboard containers) as iodized salt. Some table salt is fortified with iodine to prevent iodine deficiencies and thyroid problems, but non-iodized table salt is also available. Some people find iodized salt adds a metallic taste to foods.
You're only supposed to add the chili powder right at the end so it doesn't burn and lose flavour when cooking. The local lamb skewer vendor does it this way. When i take them home and try to reheat with a torch, the skewers lose the majority of the spice.
Good afternoon Lucas, is this similar to Suya powder that used in Africans treat food grill meats? The ingredients sound eerily similar. If so, I love that we all share similar food cultures, even when far apart.
I had wonderful thinly sliced, bone-in lamb chops rubbed with cumin and charcoal grilled from a street vendor in Ghana. He said it was a Nigerian dish.
@@engineerncook6138 I fully need a tour of all grilled street foods from varying countries lol! That sounds delicious….now I want to consider portioning out my Suya spice and adding some cumin and fennel to see what that gets me…
Another dish? The chili and peanuts are a no-go for me but I learned a lot about the lamb shoulder and composition of skewers for best result of fat/lean. I wonder if paired bamboo skewers would solve the spinning problem? It is a problem!
Dunno. The spices are so good you didn't want to reduce them so you need lamb instead of beef just to be able to taste meat. Include more fatty parts, especially if the fat can get a little charred? Maybe less time in the marinade?
It's commonly considered gamey, and that depends on its age and diet. Sometimes you'll get mutton that's sold as lamb and that's gamier. Even if it didn't fit some strict definition for a very general term, it has a distinct taste and if you're trying to describe it, there's no better word for it than gamey.
@Leto_0 Tastes like lamb. You want gamey, go eat wild game, especially wild game that was shot on the run .Most people are used to anemic pork or grain fed cow. Lamb/mutton is very mild. But it does taste like an animal that has eaten ita natural diet.
Whatever the exact source or definition of gamey, it stands to reason that many people would call lamb or mutton gamey - sheep and goats are much closer relatives to deer than other common sources of meat you commonly get. It's not an off flavour, it's just a disctinct note.
this is one of my favorite dishes to make. The spice is amazing but I personally would not use gochugaru because its too mild. Beats spending over $100 on skewers from eating at a restaurant
Scientifically, you gotta blend the onions for it to work as a tenderising agent (cuz it became a juice that can easily penetrate the meat), otherwise, it's just...onions.
Scientifically, you don't know what you're talking about. He literally explained it in the video so I shouldn't need to reexplain it to you. Meat is 70%+ water. A slight amount leaks out when you cut into it because it loses some capacity for holding onto liquid. This leaves some but very little opportunity for liquid to reenter the meat. Very little, if any, onion juices would enter the meat, and it would mostly effect the pieces of meat at the bottom of the bowl. The main benefit of blended onion is increased surface area, as he said. But also as he said, professionals explicity say they don't do this, because it affects the taste too much. Finely sliced onions also provide a lot of surface area, and since they're mixed into the meat, they're getting almost as much contact as liquid. Something doesn't have to be in liquid form to diffuse. That's a very basic scientific concept. It's also just a basic concept of cooking. How do you think spices work if they aren't in liquid?
It’s a mystery that Lucas still doesn’t have a tv show. I need weekly Lucas cooking show 😊😊😊
At this point, I watch Lucas do anything....
😂😂😍😍❤️❤️
Same, he's amazing
I hate that MSG still needs this explanation. It's fine, people.
I even hate how there are creators who still make it as if it's a taboo. "The secret sprinkle"
MSG Fuiyohhh!!
It is slighty worse then salt. Salt is not great for you either, can really mess with blood pressure. Everything in moderation.
There is nothing wrong with MSG .
I bought into the hype and found out I don't actually like the flavor. It makes everything taste like instant ramen.
If Lucas Sin releases a cook book or does a world food tour. Sign me up. I love all his content!
Lucas is an educator - and I love it!
I love that the chinese character for skewer looks like a skewer lol
I see Lucas I click
Also this recipe looks amazing
Lucas is the man - he needs his own show
One of my favorite dishes in China, mandatory to wash it down with some cold beer. So happy Lucas posted this video teaching us - can't wait to make it!
For those who never had this, it is one of the greatest foods of all time.
Thank you for this. 羊肉串 or lamb skewers are my ratatouille so I really appreciate the care and thoughtfulness behind this video.
As an Australian, I'd never heard anyone describe Lamb as "gamey" until I started watching some US cooking videos on UA-cam. It's funny - we grew up with lamb, so it just tastes _like lamb_ to us lol. Outside of vegetarians and so forth, I don't know anyone who dislikes lamb. I know the US just has a _massive_ beef industry, with lamb being _relatively_ uncommon, so it really is just one of those things that depends on what you grew up with I suppose
People that don't eat lamb usually will say it's gamey
I think that "gamey" just means "flavorful". Agree that it's wild to get a delicious cut of meat and think "how can I get rid of the flavor?"
Growing up eating it, Id say Lamb does have a gamy smell and taste especially after getting cold or reheated. It s also why when cooking lamb, spices and herbs are used more.
You are probably right about not much lamb produced locally here. I only find lamb from AU and NZ.
in the USA there are people who only eat chicken tenders and Mac n cheese. To these people any flavor outside of hotdog or hamburger is weird
@@KHGuitarFreak1988 but it's such a commonly consumed and domesticated meat. To me that's the same as saying beef tastes gamey. I tell you what, I very rarely eat Kangaroo meat, and it _is an actual_ game meat. Now when it's raw, it has a pretty strong gamey smell, some people find it off-putting - but once cooked it tastes and looks pretty much exactly like a lean piece of beef steak. It's very lean, so you have to be careful not to overcook it - think like a "top round" steak, but otherwise it's pretty hard to differentiate. My point is, yeah sure, lamb tastes _different_ , but chicken also tastes _different_ , as does fish and crab etc. I'd just never heard it described as "gamey". Not like Venison, or Emu or Pheasant or something. That's all.
I need UA-cam to make a feature, where it will give me notifications for any Lucas video, on any channel. I need a lucas bell!
Omg this was one of my favourite dishes living in Beijing. I've eaten this more times than I can count! It's so good to have Lucas's explain how to properly prepare and cook it! I've bbq'd quite a few yang rou chuanr since being back at home but with different recipes. Now I know more of the theory behind it to get just right. But yeah need the beer to wash it all down!
MSG is the crystalline stuff on Kombu. And there's a ton of it in chicken soup.
Take a tiny pinch of MSG and a tiny pinch of salt and taste them together. Totally tastes like chicken soup without being distinctively chicken-flavored.
Yayyy more Lucas content! Always ecstatic to see him pop up and watch/rewatch his vids all the time
Lucas is a true ambassador between east and west, for both east and west. Keep the authentic cultural sharing going!!
For those who doesn't like lamb, pork belly and chicken wings are both great for this format. Same spice mix, same technique, just grill for a little bit longer and it's good to go. In fact pretty much everything can be skewed and grilled like this as long as you know how to grill, so just go wild about it.
I love how he explains the techniques and food science, it is so useful for us viewers to understand the purpose of the ingredients!
I'm absolutely loving these Lucas episodes!
Best grilled lamb skewers I ever had was on the streets of Lhasa. The pieces of lamb were so small, so fatty, so flavourful.
This is the only food from my infancy that I still remember to this day. My mother used to take me to get these skewers at the bottom of a big hill in Beijing. I haven't had these in over 3 decades but I remember the exact taste.
>In this episode of Why It Works, Lucas Sin demonstrates Hong Kong Style techniques for making the perfect omelet using all of your takeout leftovers.
Copy pasted description eh? 😅
Stoned social media manager 🚬
There was an egg in there, so these are actually grilled omelettes with leftover lamb. 😛
🫣
Absolutely incredible. Gonna have to try these once I get my grill set back up.
i was fortunate enough to taste this flavor, the flavor of 羊肉串, eight years ago. there were only two places that did 羊肉串 back then, and now there are at least nine. i hope they spread to the rest of the world 😊 🌎
truly, you will become hopelessly addicted to it's flavor. it becomes your favorite spice mix to throw on everything. your steaks and potato chips will end up coated with fennel and cumin. you will end up with at least one more grill than you have now, which you bought so that you could achieve restaurant quality skewers at home. your chinese friends will want to eat dinner at your place more often. learn to make 羊肉串 at home and life will be excellent
The only adverse affects I have from MSG is ……extreme happiness, enjoyment, deliciousness. MSG…DONT COOK WITHOUT IT!
Cumin Lamb is my favorite thing to order at restaurants that do authentic Chinese food. And one of my three favorite things to make at home.
I eat Xinjiang BBQ twice a month. As living in China I can now even hear the BBQ's people downstairs haha.. Best BBQ ever, here they dipping the skewers in a sauce before grilling it and make a awesome taste.
When in China and you smell this 3 blocks away, mandatory to walk over to the source of the smell and get a handful of skewers.
14:50 - happens to the best of us
Excited to try this recipe though, thanks Lucas!
Ah. This is the one thing i cant miss having in china when i visit. Well, this and malatang.
Its also terrific that these lamb skewers are so consistently tasty anywhere you buy them. And yes, i have had people who refuse to eat lamb, eat these. The seasoning is magic.
The Krups grinder is classic! I still have mine from over 20 years ago sitting on my counter.
Lucas explain cooking like is science, love it
Great video - one of my favourite dishes. Is the spice mix also made with sichuan pepper and chili in some areas?
Very precise thorough presentation! Thank You!
Lucas is looking good in that gingham apron 😁
Great recipe and always looking forward to his explanations
This was my absolute favorite street food growing up!
Can i use oven for this?
Love your style, thank you so much!
Another great video
I work in the Navy Yard too. Hope to see you guys around.
also sliced onion is a perfect texture when its cooked properly (im not talking about mushed french onion ofc😂😂)
The best Xinjiang skewers I've had always had a bit of Szechuan peppercorns and had a little mala flavour.
Fun fact, the word for skewer 串 also looks like food on a skewer.
that smoke sound at 1:52, I hear what you did there Sound Editor!
Babe, another Lucas video dropped!
Skip the overnight wait with regular bottled meat tenderizer (which is just papain or bromelain from papaya or pineapples respectively). Less water introduced too.
Interesting. I've had a closely related street food dish, 1/8th inch thick slices of bone-in lamb chops rubbed with cumin quickly grilled over charcoal in Ghana! The bones serve as handles for flipping on the grill an for eating. Similar to a Nigerian street food called suya made with ground peanuts and other spices. Duplicated the dish for my nieces graduation party.
Finally a video on this!!
Def. making a large batch of the seasoning blend 💯🔥 I use rice bran or peanut oil for almost everything.
I'd also recommend using lamb flap if you can get a hold of it. It's basically the ribs deboned.
Thanks for the tip. I have some in the freezer so there's supper sorted , All the best
Making this immediately also where did you get the apron?
Get BA to pay for travel, have food 52 publishes recipes hahahaha
Yes!!!! Thank you !!!!
If you wanted to use beef, do you have a cut you would recommend? Also, all your content is fire. Thanks!!
Depends on budget but if no budget then tenderloin if budget then sirloin
Or New York strip
As a Brit, lamb is not normally “gamy”. Older lamb can be gamy or depending on what its fed on
Professor Lucas!
hi! the linked recipe calls for “2 tablespoons… chicken powder or MSG”. to be clear, if i were using MSG, i would use 2 tablespoons of it? i often see in recipes folks use about half or less of the amount of MSG relative to salt in the recipe, so i just want to make sure the proportions are right.
i will always click for lucas
I use MSG, but sometimes I use mushroom powder I have dried and ground for those scared of it. (I usually use both when I can😈 and it doesn’t seem too much)
The BEST thing about the flat skewer shape, is that the meat doesn't spin around on it.
You make me want to cook! And eat!
Lucas....the egg shell....the shell LUCAS NO STAHP. OH GOD HE'S CRUSHING IT IN THERE.
Extra calcium 😂
If it was broken down then it was small enough to not injure you and cooked enough to not worry about salmonella, which is a 1 in 20,000 chance anyway.
If it wasn't broken down then he obviously would have found it when he picked out pieces of meat one at a time.
I hate that this video is out when summer is over. lol perfect for next summer
having grown up eating grass fed lamb in New Zealand I've never even considered lamb as being gamey
Why no Sichuan peppers? I thought this recipe always includes them?
Can finely ground sea salt be used instead of iodized salt?
Yes, but it's relatively a lot of work to get what's usually a noticeable cheaper, and easy to buy, ingredient... You don't even get the potential benefit of the flavor notes of the sea salt, because all of the other spices in the mix are intentionally much stronger.
yeah, just weight it. Grind 18 gram of sea salt (Sea salt is larger than iodized salt) to your chile powder's size. If you really don't want to buy iodized salt or grind sea salt down then leave it out of the seasoning and salt separately.
@@jackywchen Thanks!
Lucas (and many other cooks online) are mistakenly calling all table salt (small cubic crystals commonly sold in cylindrical cardboard containers) as iodized salt. Some table salt is fortified with iodine to prevent iodine deficiencies and thyroid problems, but non-iodized table salt is also available. Some people find iodized salt adds a metallic taste to foods.
I like that he still gave the vegan version of MSG as an option when its a lamb dish😂
Well, at the end of the video he says that he even uses the spice mixture for vegetables.
You're only supposed to add the chili powder right at the end so it doesn't burn and lose flavour when cooking. The local lamb skewer vendor does it this way. When i take them home and try to reheat with a torch, the skewers lose the majority of the spice.
lamb kabobs are forever GOATED
plain balkan style yogurt can be used with the marinade too, helps with tenderness and getting a good char
once u been to xinjiang yourself , trying to recreat that flavour oversea is very difficult.
australian lamb i tried just not good enough
Yes Lucas!
Wild goat catch cook in Hawaii or better know as the Big Island 🏝️
Msg 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽
Good afternoon Lucas, is this similar to Suya powder that used in Africans treat food grill meats? The ingredients sound eerily similar. If so, I love that we all share similar food cultures, even when far apart.
Similar in that it’s a blend of spices. But cumin and fennel are the keys to this seasoning and I don’t think they are used in suya?
@@TanukiSC ah okie yes I see, I just checked my suya spice and those two were missing. Thank you :-)
I had wonderful thinly sliced, bone-in lamb chops rubbed with cumin and charcoal grilled from a street vendor in Ghana. He said it was a Nigerian dish.
@@engineerncook6138 I fully need a tour of all grilled street foods from varying countries lol! That sounds delicious….now I want to consider portioning out my Suya spice and adding some cumin and fennel to see what that gets me…
yes, very similar to suya spice
noy him suggesting a vegan alternative to mushroom powder, in order to season meat skewers
Lucas, say that MSG info louder for the folks in the back. So tired of the hate for MSG.
Lucas is vying for his "uncle" title... someone page Uncle Roger!
I love lamb skewers but I think the street vendors grill it with no seasoning at first then season as they go to prevent burning.
The reason I like lamb is because of the gaminess. This recipe looks great though so I'll try it soon anyway.
The way you know a restaurant/food stall's lamb skewers are gonna slap is when they serve the thinnest slivers of meat
What would be an adaptation of this recipe for people who actually like the flavor of lamb?
Another dish? The chili and peanuts are a no-go for me but I learned a lot about the lamb shoulder and composition of skewers for best result of fat/lean. I wonder if paired bamboo skewers would solve the spinning problem? It is a problem!
Cut the pieces bigger - you get more of the lamb flavour but still have the delicious seasoning.
Dunno. The spices are so good you didn't want to reduce them so you need lamb instead of beef just to be able to taste meat. Include more fatty parts, especially if the fat can get a little charred? Maybe less time in the marinade?
It's called kawap or kawaplar
I have an instinct to serve just about everything with a yogurt sauce, lol
And the Chinese word for skewer is 串, which looks like a 🍡
I could listen to this guy read the phone book
Wait this salt thing blows my mind. I thought it was just a style thing.
Kidney and liver are not intestines, they are offal.
This vid is why TikTokkers will NEVER learn how to cook! The concepts real chefs teach can be used over and over with other recipes 😊
Instructions unclear. Fridge now full of Cumin Lamb Oreo Bun Burgers.
Sir... @4:24 you can see the eggshell in the bowl. I hope that didn't get into the final product 😅🤭
Lamb is not gamey, it tastes like Lamb.
It's commonly considered gamey, and that depends on its age and diet. Sometimes you'll get mutton that's sold as lamb and that's gamier.
Even if it didn't fit some strict definition for a very general term, it has a distinct taste and if you're trying to describe it, there's no better word for it than gamey.
@Leto_0 Tastes like lamb. You want gamey, go eat wild game, especially wild game that was shot on the run .Most people are used to anemic pork or grain fed cow. Lamb/mutton is very mild. But it does taste like an animal that has eaten ita natural diet.
@@Leto_0 If Lamb is gamey, so is beef, poultry, pork etc. Gamey describes an off flavor
Whatever the exact source or definition of gamey, it stands to reason that many people would call lamb or mutton gamey - sheep and goats are much closer relatives to deer than other common sources of meat you commonly get. It's not an off flavour, it's just a disctinct note.
@@TheD510addict grass fed beef is gamey
The secret ingredient was the egg shell
this is one of my favorite dishes to make. The spice is amazing but I personally would not use gochugaru because its too mild. Beats spending over $100 on skewers from eating at a restaurant
MAXIMUM
LUCAS
This is Central Asian food, not "Chinese" food.
Second!
To me it's a crime to get rid of the game flavour of lamb
I can eat 50 skewers
Scientifically, you gotta blend the onions for it to work as a tenderising agent (cuz it became a juice that can easily penetrate the meat), otherwise, it's just...onions.
Scientifically, you don't know what you're talking about.
He literally explained it in the video so I shouldn't need to reexplain it to you.
Meat is 70%+ water. A slight amount leaks out when you cut into it because it loses some capacity for holding onto liquid. This leaves some but very little opportunity for liquid to reenter the meat. Very little, if any, onion juices would enter the meat, and it would mostly effect the pieces of meat at the bottom of the bowl.
The main benefit of blended onion is increased surface area, as he said. But also as he said, professionals explicity say they don't do this, because it affects the taste too much. Finely sliced onions also provide a lot of surface area, and since they're mixed into the meat, they're getting almost as much contact as liquid.
Something doesn't have to be in liquid form to diffuse. That's a very basic scientific concept. It's also just a basic concept of cooking. How do you think spices work if they aren't in liquid?