Lamb Kofte Kebabs with Shallots

Back in the 1990s, when I first began to explore Turkish cuisine, I received a fax from a woman who had heard that I was interested in the cooking of her native Gaziantep, a city located on an ancient caravan route, near the Syrian border. It is Turkey’s gastronomic capital, known for its red pepper–based cooking, cooling yogurt soups, bright green pistachio baklava, grilled lamb kebabs, and hand-chopped lamb kebabs (koftes), which come in numerous shapes and sizes.

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