Recipe: Re: Donor Kebabs for Darlene, Michigan

Hi Darlene :-) I spent some time trying to find you a recipe on the internet but wasn't very successful. I did find some interesting sauce recipes but not the German version that you wanted. Anyway the following is what I found for you:

"In Turkey, doner kebab consists of thin cuts of lamb laid over warm "fladenbrot," a round flat loaf similar to pita, and steeped in tsatsiki sauce, with tomatoes, onions, and lettuce on the side. It is usually served in sit-down restaurants. In Germany, "doner," has taken on a sandwich form, and is sold from small booths catering to takeout customers. The meat is slowly roasted on a vertical spit, sliced almost paper-thin, and then stuffed into a triangular piece of fladenbrot, topped by the vegetables. For about 60 cents more, a few slabs of feta cheese are included. The sauces - garlic or tomato-based and ranging from tangy to sharp - often vary. "The different doner booths make their own sauces according to their own recipes," says Tuncay Zulkaflu, owner of Knig Doner in Dresden. What makes "Istanbul Doner," another doner booth in Dresden and two-time winner of a magazine-sponsored survey for the city's best doner, so popular? "The sauces," answers a worker there. "It is a very special recipe, but it is a secret, so I can't say [what it is]...There are an estimated 9,300 doner vendors in Germany...As far as the doner's place on the German snack circuit, "It is equal to the bratwurst or bockwurst," says Uwe Stuhrberg, editor at Sax Magazine, which conducted the doner surveys. According to a 1998 study on doner by the Turkish Studies Center at Essen University, the average German eats eight doners per year. Not bad for a sandwich developed less than thirty years ago, when Turkish "guest workers" in Germany, who found themselves unemployed in the midst of the '70s economic crisis, starting selling doners to support their families. Back then, vendors prepared the meat themselves and sold it from street corners. It remained mainly a mom-and-pop industry until German reunification, when vendors tapped into the East German market."

I did find this interesting sauce popular in the Canadian Maritimes but I don't think that it is what you are looking for??!?

Donairs are a huge snack staple in the Maritimes of Canada. They're similar to Gyros and Kebabs, in that they're basically spicy meat wrapped in a pita with garden veggies and sauce.

The sauce used predominately on Canada's East coast is Sweet Sauce. The spiciness of the meat, combined with the sweetness and acidity of the sauce and the freshness of the toppings makes a very interesting taste experience.

2 Tbsp garlic powder
30 oz white sugar
6 385 ml cans condensed milk
1 cup vinegar

And, finally, one more recipe that I found. Perhaps the marinade is used as the suace. It seems that it might be similar to an Italian dressing.

Doner Kebab
Turkish Recipe

2 1/2 to 3 lb. leg of lamb, boned and cut in slices
1 Tbsp. black pepper
3 lbs. ground lamb
Lamb fat
1 egg
2 to 3 Tbsp. salt
onions, processed until a liquid-3 cups
1 cup olive oil
1 large tomato

This kebab is difficult to make at home, but I had to put it in. It is so popular in Turkey, as a sandwich, with pide cubes, a tomato sauce and yogurt (Iskender), or just plain with pilaf.

Remove any bits of skin and bone from the meat. Cut into serving-size slices, about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Pound with a meat tenderizer or the edge of a heavy saucepan until 1/8 cm. thick. Trim.

Prepare a marinade of onion juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and soak meat in the marinade overnight.
Spread over each piece of meat the lamb fat, and ground lamb mixed with an egg. Thread pieces of meat on a long skewer, starting with the larger pieces. Trim the chunk of meat on the skewer and add trimmings to the end of skewer. The tomato is put on the skewer whole at the end. The chunk of meat is broiled in the 'Doner Kebab' broiler, made specially for the purpose. The electric rotisseries they are selling today work well.

As the meat turns on the spit and is cooked, it is sliced off the sides with a sharp knife.