Kebabs and skewered foods are as convenient for chefs as they are for customers. They can be tiny: a single tidbit as an amuse-bouche, part of an appetizer array or on a tray passed by a caterer at a cocktail party. Or they can be hefty spears laden with thick portions of steak and paraded around the room at churrascarias.
Cuisines including Indian, Middle Eastern and Turkish feature kebabs of one kind or another. Greek souvlaki, Russian shashlik, Indonesian satays, French brochettes, Italian spiedini and American skewers all are variations on the theme. These days, with the increasing popularity of small plates in all sorts of operations, serving skewers of food has increased appeal.
An assortment of traditional and inventive Russian appetizers at Petrossian Restaurant in New York includes nuggets of skewered lobster glazed with vanilla butter. Among the tapas at Tia Pol in New York are lamb skewers called pinchos morunos that come with the chunks of meat interspersed with cubes of bread to catch the drippings.
Similarly, the lollipop skewer has become extremely popular. Such items include caramel-lacquered shrimp pops with a Vietnamese fish sauce and mint at Wish in Miami Beach, Fla., lollipops of braised beef as an appetizer at Almond Flower Bistro in New York, and frog leg lollipops with jalapeño aïoli at the new Mai House in New York. Mai House also offers lemon grass skewers of lamb with pickled vegetables and an anchovy sauce.
At Dragonfly, a lounge in Stamford, Conn., whose menu is all over the map, the assortment of small plates includes tandoori chicken satay with a mango-chutney dipping sauce, and a beef satay on purple sugarcane with chimichurri sauce. Among the large plates at this operation are skewers of seared striped bass with wok-roasted asparagus and a soy drizzle.
The espetadas at Tintol, a Portuguese tapas restaurant in New York, are little beef shish kebabs. Sugarcane-skewered scallops with chili-braised oxtail and parsnips are one of the appetizers at the Penthouse in the Huntley Santa Monica Beach Hotel in Santa Monica, Calif. Ludo in New York threads ground lamb onto lamb bones for an unusual kebab served with smoked eggplant mousse and pickled chiles.
At Pera, a new Turkish operation in New York, there are kebabs of all kinds. Among the appetizers is a trio of lamb, harissa shrimp and soujouk, or ground lamb sausage. Chicken brochettes show up as a main course and there is even a brochette Caesar salad garnished with a chicken skewer.
Chicken skewers are on the bar menu at the Seafood Barge in Southold, N.Y. At Four Food Studio in Melville, N.Y., there are skewers of peasant chicken with spicy peanut sauce, ginger-soy filet mignon with sesame garlic sauce, miso-glazed Chilean sea bass with orange-ginger sauce, and Ecuadorian white jumbo shrimp with black-pepper ponzu sauce.
Though skewers are usually made of reusable metal or non-reusable bamboo, some chefs are becoming inventive with the skewers themselves. Some operations use branches of rosemary or thyme. Others experiment with the bones of chicken, frog legs and lamb. Spears of lemon grass and sugar cane also can accommodate food for Vietnamese-style kebab grilling.
A main course chicken brochette comes on thyme skewers with artichoke tapenade, mixed mushrooms, tomatoes, arugula and Parmesan cheese all drizzled with lemon-infused olive oil at Fig & Olive in New York, which also puts other herbs to use as skewers on a mixed tasting plate that includes the chicken on thyme branches, lamb on rosemary and shrimp on oregano skewers.