Meat and Potato Kebabs

Ingredients
Boneless chicken
Steak
Small potatoes (red, white, fingerling, blue, whatever)
Garlic powder
Salt
Basil
Butter
Skewers (bamboo or metal)

Meat and potatoes go together like strip clubs and glitter, beer and firearms, and choking and the Washington Capitals. Combine these two foods with the greatest method of cooking known to man and you have something pretty special.
There's something to be said about food on a stick. That something is "Hell yes, give me some food on a stick." The greatest thing about kebabs is that you're cooking a whole meal at once.  The hardest thing about kebabs is that you have to cook a whole meal at once. With your traditional kebab fare (meat and veg), this isn't that big a deal; just make sure to slice your meat small enough and everything will turn out nicely. But when you get potatoes involved, it becomes a whole other ball game. But it can be done, and pretty simply assuming you're not a dumbass. Also, we're going to lose the vegetables all together because fuck vegetables.

Ancient Persian preparing to grill out

A Word About Kebab Versus Kebob
The word kebab comes from the Persian word kebbaba which means "to burn". It appears in the Talmud when describing offerings made at the local temple (usually burnt meat). Today, it's combined with the word shish (from the Arabic word for grilled meat) to describe meat grilled on a skewer. I'm not entirely sure what a kebob is, but feel free to keep calling it that if you find kebab a tad pretentious.


IMPORTANT NOTE: This recipe requires use of a grill. If you don't have a grill or rudimentary knowledge of how to use a grill, disregard this recipe. Also, kill yourself.

Medium Rare: A Love Story

If you're a regular reader of this blog, then you've undoubtedly learned a thing or two about steak.There's one subject concerning nature's most perfect food that I've avoided, and for good reason. That subject is: degree of cooking.
Degree of cooking (or "steak doneness") is a divisive topic to say the least. Everyone has their opinion. I'm normally a very live and let live kinda guy... tastes vary, and if you like something a certain way then that's the way you should have it. However, I have a real problem with one-half of the doneness debate, which I'm addressing now.
There are two kinds of people when it comes to degree of cooking, as illustrated in the following images:

and

As if you couldn't have guessed by the title of this post, I'm firmly in the first camp. However, I try not to be an asshole about it. There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about steak doneness and, as a result, cooking and eating meat in general. It is these misconceptions that lead most people to request and then consume poorly prepared (overcooked) steak. It's akin to ordering a soggy bowl of cereal. These myths also keep many people from ever trying a properly prepared steak, for fear of death.
My aim is to address the four myths that cause most people to shy away from eating a properly cooked steak, starting with the biggest one of all, which I will now indicate with bold text and a large font.

Fucking Badass Guide to Steak

Steak. The perfectly named food. It's a piece of animal flesh that you cook and eat. What better word than a short, guttural sound that doubles as something you fucking kill vampires with? So what's the big fucking deal with steaks? There are hundreds of different cuts of meat and 90% of people couldn't begin to tell you where even one of them comes from. Most people approach buying a steak in a supermarket or ordering a steak at a restaurant like they're buying parts for a fucking spaceship. It really doesn't need to be this complicated, and I'll prove it.

Steak is all about fat content. The more fat in your steak, the better it tastes. That's the bottom line... fat = taste. So why do so many people go for a "lean" steak if it tastes like a bland asshole? There's only one reason: fat makes your steak tougher. For those of you playing at home, that leaves you with two options:



You can have...

A delicious piece of a boat cover (high fat content)

OR

A tender piece of generic meat product #793G (low fat content)

Luckily, these two extremes aren't your only options. You can find a happy medium, and your cut selection has the biggest impact on that. Plus, you can cook a high fat steak to make it more tender and you can season a lean cut to make it taste better.


Now that we've got all that bullshit out of the way, let's move on to cut. Some restaurants claim to have over five hundred different cuts of steak. What does that mean? Fuck all, that's what it means. When it comes to steak, you really only really need to know four cuts. It's far easier to remember where these cuts come from if you tell the cow to fuck off and use something you're more familiar with. I like to use Lady Gaga. I mean, what the fuck else are you supposed to do with Lady Gaga?