If you're making skewers you can use stew meat. You don't want anything too soft or it'll fall off! Or if you want to go American with the catfish, you could use turkey. Marinated cubed turkey breast barbecued on skewers with mushrooms, pearl onions and pieces of bell pepper is very good. Tomatoes should be done separately as they fall apart too quickly for the meat.

I'm allergic to a lot of fish and know nothing about prices, but my friends barbecue trout. Not a sea fish though.

With those diverse cultures present, I would do grilled catfish or tilapia and chicken kabobs. I think the fish should not be marinated, but served with a light sauce to add or not or simply brushed with a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice and herbs. The chicken (boneless thighs are good on the grill) can be marinated in Mediterranean herbs, EVOO, chopped garlic, chopped capers, s&p - like a souvlaki but with chicken. You could also do kabobs of peppers, onions, and zucchini chunks.

Orange Roughy was quite expensive at the store last night, as was halibut. I found some frozen pollock that is good for another choice.

Add some hummus and pita chips, tabbouleh salad, a cucumber salad, dessert with perhaps fresh fruit and you are good to go.

Teresa

I've made this in the past and it is quite good..... Good luck with the BBQ! Sounds like a very interesting and ecclectic group.

A

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Ground Lamb on a Stick

This is a very old and traditional Middle Eastern recipe. The trick is getting the meat to hold onto the skewers. Be gentle with them. As they cook the meat will harden and hold fast. You can serve these lamb kebabs by themselves of with a grilled pita and yogurt sauce.
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutesIngredients:
Â1 green chili, finely chopped
Â1 large onion, finely chopped
Â1 pound lamb (or beef)
Â2 teaspoon coriander
Â2 cloves minced garlic
Â1 teaspoon chili powder
Â1 teaspoon garam masala
Â1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Â2 teaspoons ground almonds
Â1/2 teaspoon turmeric
Âvegetable oil
Â1 egg
Preparation:
Preheat grill. Mix all ingredients together. Mold mixture around long skewers (or do it the hard way and form the mixture into long thin sausages and thread onto skewers). Only the ends of the skewers should be visible. Place on grill, brush with oil and cook until done. Remove from skewers and serve. Traditionally served with rice and onion slices.

I'd cheeck with the Muslim students to see if they only eat 'halal' meat - their version of kosher.

Oy, this poor kid is very assimilated, he's been living in the dorm for two years and he never says a word when we go to a function and all there is to eat are ham sandwiches. I just know he would prefer not to eat pork even though I have seen him do it to not cause a fuss. He doesn't have to have halal meat, but I know he will appreciate no pork.

What kind of lamb meat should I get, what cut? Do they sell lamb stew meat? Maybe I'll throw in some chicken thighs to the mix. I know my South African student says that they eat a lot of meat over there, and considering the cultural mix in S. African, I can believe that!

For dessert baklava has been requested and I think I can get some at the farm market. I'm also considering trying this date fig bread recipe I found online. I have the ingredients. Or maybe I'll do lemon bars. I like to do melon when I make a mediterannean dinner in the summer, but I refuse to buy melon this far out of season, it just seems a waste. I also have a recipe for blackberry shortbread I might do, I have frozen blackberries.

I'm going to do pita with hummus, roasted eggplant dip, spinach feta cuke dip, for an appetizer. Then the meat, orzo pilaf or salad of some kind, and maybe a carrot salad or coleslaw with fancy cabbage, which for me means nappa.

If you are going to skewer chunks of lamb, I would probably get a leg portion. The butcher should be able to bone it out for you, then you can cube it and marinate it.

Good luck!

Alexa

Thanks A! I'd like to try your recipe, but I don't quite get the egg? Is this sort of like lamb meatloaf on a stick? I'm imagining ground lamb will be less expensive than chunked? Maybe I should do a mix of lamb and beef. I know some people don't like lamb, but I like it well enough.

Not only do I have three students from all over Africa, I have Hispanic students, one girl with parents from Thailand and she was raised in Argentina, plus some Italian Americans and plain old white bread Americans. But they all love sharing cultures! That's why I'm throwing the party, to celebrate this special group!

Yep - the egg will help it stick together and it is sort of like meatloaf. Speaking of which, I've got this thread saved, it might help you out even though it isn;t "BBQ"....

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Gyro Meat very easy
1 lb ground lamb
1 lb ground beef
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried ground marjoram
1/2 tsp dried ground rosemary
1/2 tsp black pepper
Combine everything and refrigerate for a couple of hours for flavors to blend.
Blend in a food processor ( in 2 batches if necessary) for about a minute. This will smooth out the meat and make it a finer grain, like commercial gyro meat.
Pack the meat firmly into a loaf pan. I use a meatloaf pan that has an insert, meat is packed into the insert and as it cooks, the fats collect in the pan underneath for disposal.
Bake at 325° for 45-60 minutes.
Nancy (wizardn)

****Notes - Hey Nancy,
I've made your Gyro recipe a couple of times...love it! We had a last minute gathering last week where I needed to provide an appetizer for 30. I had about 1/2 of a loaf of your Gyros in the freezer sooo... I bought 60 baby pitas. I cut little chunks of the Gyros and placed them on the pitas on a platter. I chopped up some tomatoes and vidalia onions which I placed on a seperate plate along with a bowl of tzatziki sauce, so everyone was able to dress their own "baby Gyro bite".
Everyone went crazy over this!! You would think I had SLAVED for hours. There were several requests for the recipes (Gyros and Tzatziki). I tried to explain the CF thing, but they didn't get it. I'm so glad I do.
Claire (who lurks in summer, cooks in winter)

I'd be bummed out if I went to a feast in another country and they served hamburgers and hot dogs. The USA is all about beef and big servings. Why not throw them an all American BBQ... beer, burgers, potato salad, baked beans, watermelon, chips of every kind? Lamb could be expensive but nothing beats rack of lamb. New York strips can be had for about $5/lb if you buy a whole one. I was looking at porter/T-bone at $6/lb in the sale ad this week.

Oh... and a big ol' bon fire to roast marshmallows over?

Just thoughts... I'm sure any meal will be appreciated.

: )
lyra

Lpink, you can get really good lamb at one booth in the Fairgrounds Market. It's the one one behind and to your left of the Italian stand at the bottom of the ramp. They have well-trimmed lamb cubes, the best ground lamb and also lamb legs, both boned and bone-in.

For the fish, I'd recommend not doing kabobs but grilling some whole NJ sea bass, which are a good value right now and have a mild flavor. The Elias fish market has them at a fraction of the price of the grocery stores and their fish is always fresh, although that wouldn't be my first choice for shellfish.

Well, that is some food for thought Bunnyman! As for the steaks, no way for this two part-time jobs no health insurance girl to afford that, but maybe I will skip the hummus and do mom's potato salad, baked beans and coleslaw for the sides. And then maybe s'mores for the second dessert. I have a s'more bars recipe but they are like a diabetic coma level sweet. These kids have been eating in our cafeteria so I think they are hamburger, hot dog chipped out.

Thank you so much for the shopping tips Ruthanna. I would have never thought of Elias for fish. I have a fish market a couple of blocks from me too, but I have never gone there. I have never had NJ sea bass so it sounds very exciting to try. I'm also wondering about maybe getting some turkey cutlets and doing them satay style.

Hey Lpink, I think I recall you have a crockpot... why not toss a hunk of chuck (cheap) and a mess of dry rub in it and do BBQ beef sandwiches? Normally I would have said pork shoulder, but you mentioned a non-pork eater. Maybe a couple of differend BBQ sauces on the side for them to try? And for the fish why not a catfish fry with hush puppies?

And I love the baked bean, potato salad, cole slaw idea - I think Bunnyman did hit on a great point.

Alexa

Yes, Opkikid's slow cooker shredded beef made with chuck cuts is usually my "go to" meat thing for my students, but I really want to do a barbecue/grill thing. These kids have been cooped up in the dorm so I want to do it at a park with charcoal and tongs and the whole deal.

So now I'm thinking pita chips with roasted eggplant red pepper and spinach cuke feta dips, mint lemonade, shis kebabs of some type with zuchinni and peppers too, and the traditional sauces, turkey shwarma style, (not satay, wrong subcontinent), grilled fish of some kind, potoato salad, baked beans, that napa slaw with ramen noodles, baklava for dessert and maybe s'mores on the grill, although to be honest I hate them. I was a camp director or 10 years and I just got "s'mored" out. Maybe I'll splurge on a couple of pineapples. We'll see how much they are. If not, maybe I'll stick with cobbler. I have a recipe for a cake made with corn flour, cranberries and ricotta, kinda like what Annie made with berries in the new recipe thread. That would bring in all the traditional american foods--corn, beans and squash, in a non-traditional way. I had to laugh because on the way home from work I saw a turkey out foraging in a field along the highway.

Ruthanna any ideas on where I can get good fresh pita bread in the Valley? There is a Middle Eastern style market a couple of blocks from Elias but I've never scoped out the pita there. Also maybe the Farmers Market, but ditto on not scoping that out for pita either. I usually just buy it in the grocery store but I have to admit that stuff is awful compared to the real thing.

Lpink, the pita bread is easy. Soumaya & Sons Bakery - 264 Fullerton Ave. in Whitehall. They make the bread right in the back of the building and most times, it's still warm when you buy it. You can't get fresher than that.

The M.E. place at the farmers' market, Elias market and Wegmans sell the same brand but it's fresher and cheaper direct from the bakery, in addition to being available in large and small sizes, white or wheat and topped with a zataar mixture.

I sort of agree with Lyra. Maybe they would appreciate a more American food experience. You could probably do all beef hot dogs and some sausages cheaper that the kabobs. I an now hooked on these organic chicken apple sausages. Yum! There are so many varieties of hot dogs and smoked sausages, you good grill kielbasa and serve it with rolls and sauerkraut. You don't have to go overboard to have yummy grilled food.

You have a good point too Joanm, especially since I just realized I don't have any skewers for shishkebab. I'm so glad I live three blocks from the farm market, they have lots of kinds of meat there. Veggie me has always paid it no mind and just walked by those stands, but it will be fun to explore.

I've hesitated to chime in because I was also thinking that you could do it old fashioned cookout style, but your menu sounded like something I'd rather eat! And with your years as a camp counselor, I figured you were tired of looking at that too. But a real American cookout with hotdogs, potato salad, beans, etc., would be a good cultural experience. And you could throw in a few exo-cultural things like the baklava because that's authentically American too!

BTW, if you get kosher (rather than kosher style) hotdogs, they're generally acceptable to people who keep to halal. Even the strictest, who would rather have something their own people have produced, generally agree on that kosher's fine. Your Muslim students have the good manners to eat what's in front of them, but they might appreciate having something they can feel good about. And you could get not-dogs for the vegetarians, and some chicken sausages, and have fun with the fixings.

Depending on the equipment and rules of the park, you might be able to get several firepits going and let the students do their own on sticks (or wire hangers), weenie roast style, and roast marshmallows the same way.

Mostly, however, I think cookout food (even including burgers and chicken on a grill) would be easier to transport safely. That's how it became cookout food to begin with!

The thing with my African students is, they have been living in the US for two years and have had just about every kind of American experience imaginable. They have done all the things of our culture and I think they might prefer, as I, a full blooded American of mongrel cultural hertiage do too, something other than hotdogs and hamburgers which they have had ad nauseum for the last two years. I almost always do Mediterranean as picnic food, and the most common grilling that is "traditional" in my experience is Great Lakes fish or freshwater fish fried over a campfire. I've done hamburgers and hotdogs and chicken too, for kids at camps where I've worked.

On the other hand, shishkebab is going to be expensive and also I'm going to have to get skewers which I would really rather not bother with. I'm wondering why I can't mix up the kofta meat in advance and make patties with it and grill them like hamburgers? That would be a cool mix of the traditional American burger but something unusual thrown in for fun. I know most people love kofta. Grilled boneless chicken would be almost as easy as burgers, and I do want to check out what kinds of sausages they have at the market. What is a sausage if not kofta in a casing, lol?! But all the kofta recipes I am finding online say shape it around a skewer, which I don't understand, is that just for grilling convenience? And why shape it into a loaf pan? Why not shape it into a patty and flip it? What's the problem with that?

Well, tomorrow night I am going to try out something as I plan on going to the market later today and buying some kind of meat to experiment with. I know it sounds peculiar and insolent but I'm not trying to be, I have no more experience with meat than some of you do with tofu, to me it is as baffling on what to do with it to make it taste good, lol!

[grin] I'd rather eat Mediterranean picnic too. That's my roots!

You can do the shishkebab on bamboo skewers. Just make sure to soak them so they don't catch fire, though the kofta burgers sound good too. I think the shaping guidelines are so that it keeps its form. Maybe so that it's cooked through? I've never had it pink. Making it into a burger on the barbecue sounds yummy.

Do any of your students know how to cook? Maybe they'd like to help with the planning? As well as the execution?

...Or you could do a vegetarian barbecue!

L, I don't know why you couldn't take that meat, make a patty, grill it and stick it in pita bread instead of a bun. Sauce of your choice.

I always wondered why italian sausage or brats were in sausage shape and a couple of times I made just patties when I didn't feel like getting out the sausage stuffer and grilled it and now, suddenly, I see bratwurst patties all over in the stores!

I'd rather eat the Mediterranean menu too, but you could keep that and just make it into a shape that's both easier to cook AND easier to eat.

As for that cornmeal cake, I think cranberries would be wonderful in that. The next time I make it it'll be muffins or smaller pans, because the center of that 10 inch springform was a bit soggy and the edges were nearly overdone. Muffins would be easier to carry and eat too, or maybe they'd be cupcakes, it's all the same to me!

Annie

Well, my first "adventure with meat" was pretty discouraging. I went to the farm market and did not see ANY lamb OR turkey OR fish, and even the all beef sausages were $5.49/lb. One stall had about 15 different kinds of sausages, but they were all expensive and also they all sounded like they were pork based. I also saw at the same place about 10 different kinds of hamburger patties, which gave me inspiration for maybe trying to make a Mediterannean style patty using the recipes above, maybe with feta cheese. I think the market must have been low on meat because I went late in the day on the last day. That's when you can get the good deals but apparently that's when they are out of meats, lol! I did score some pita and some hard rolls for a song.

Then, I found out the fish market in my neighborhood closed at the end of last year, but there is still that other one that Ruthanna recommended to check out. Good thing I have two weeks to prepare. There's also a kosher meat market in my neighborhood. Boy, am I ever finding out a lot about meat!

Here's a link to the recipe for the cake. I like the idea of cupcakes, because I can make one batch ahead and freeze them. I made ricotta cupcakes before and they were fab. Only thing is, I think I am going to change the menu a bit depending on what meat I do and maybe not do this cake since I will probably do corn chips for the appetizer. Now I'm thinking six layer dip, (no beans since that's an entree), corn chips, mint lemonade, kofta or shwarma with pita and tzatsiki and tahini dressing, potato salad, calico baked beans, (maybe some grilled marinated Mediterranean veggies too) and coleslaw or tossed salad. For dessert, baklava, smores, and pineapple or some other fruit thing. Kind of ecclectic but that's my taste.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cranberry orange cornmeal cake

Lpink, that sounds like a great menu. It sounds very "American" too, with the layered dip, lemonade, barbecue sides, and Med main. You can definitely flavor ordinary hamburger with schvarma spices or kebob spices. It's done all the time! Re the corn and corn thing, you could have some raw veggies for dipping as well, or instead, and cut down on the chips.

Can you say more about the ricotta cupcakes?

BTW, kosher meat is way more expensive than other meats because of the ritual handling. The hotdogs aren't so much because of volume pricing.

Well, here's my first foray into meat--I used Alexa's first recipe and shaped it into a burger. Used a mixture of ground beef and ground lamb, and also threw in about 1/2 cup lowfat feta cheese. I broiled it due to not having a grill. My stove decided to break in the middle of it all. :(
Kinda tasted like falafel only not as good.

Well, at least it looks good.

Hmmmm I wonder what happened. The few times I;ve had falafel it tasted like carp so I'm sorry it reminded you of that. Maybe you just aren;t meant to eat meat!

Alexa

Yeah, that's the truth Alexa, I think meat does taste like carp for the most part, which is why I am quite happy as a vegetarain. And conversely, I know a lot of people think vegetarain food tastes like carp and they could never imagine becoming one for that reason. I actually like chicken and fish. It's beef I can't stand, which is probably a good thing since it is the most expensive meat. Pork I'm on the fence about, depends.

I'm freezing the rest of the patties today for the cookout. I'm sure the students will like them, especially the African ones who will like the spices, which you just don't get in most American foods. I'm just not much of a judge about what meat eaters will or will not like.

L, I like both. I love falafel and I love good rare beef. I'm not so keen on lamb, I've eaten it but I don't enjoy it at all. I'm glad because it's expensive, here it's much higher than beef even.

I'm not surprised about the tomatoes and cukes either, I don't even buy tomatoes at the grocery store because they taste kind of like the styrofoam packaging they come on.

Still, your plate looks good, and I'll bet the kids are going to love the lunch.

Annie