I’ve noticed that it can differ quite a bit. For me, the stereotypical kebab is like long thin strips of meat. However, I’ve noticed that this standard of what ”kebab” means can change depending on country and region. Like in some places, you can’t even find these long strips but rather small like ”chips of meat” that have a harder, crispy edge to them.
What do you mean when you say kebab?
EDIT: might also add to many people where I’m from it’s on a plate and not in bread
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If you say kebab here its usually meant as durum with the meat chips you mentioned. Just thinking about it makes me want to get it.
For most people here its doner kebab.
So,small pieces of meat that are shaved from the large doner and then (usually) put into bread,with salad,sauce etc.
I know there are lots of other types of kebab but that is the ‘standard’ one in Italy.
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Chicken kebab here will be chunks of chicken, bite sized pieces in bread. Doner will be strips of thin meat shaved off a larger piece
I think the most popular would be pieces of meat (lamb or chicken) with vegetables and sauce (hot or mild) wrapped in a thin tortilla which you grab and eat on your way
It means that you’re off to eat some shit food cooked in a very approximative hygienic setting that you will end up liking it somehow.
Two different things, it’s the chunks of meat and veg on skewers, cooked on a barbecue, but it’s also the ‘shaved’ meat (it’s usually lamb I think?, but can be chicken or mixed too) on flatbread with garlic and chilli sauce, lettuce, onion, often with one big green chili pepper, that you would get from a chipper or other takeaway
Only Kebab could be multiple things, most people would think about Döner Kebab. Personally for me it depends on what language I am speaking. If i am speaking German, I would mean grilled Turkish (Oriental) meat. If I am speaking English or Spanish, it’s Döner Kebab
In Scotland the typical kebab is long thin strips of lamb donner with some salad and chilli sauce served in a pita bread. If you want a shish or something else you’d have to specify.
A doner or durum Kebab. So the shavings of kebab meat in bread with salad and sauce, and often a side of chips.
Stripped meat from vertical rotisserie, now for your question looks like its more welldone/roasted then it should on ‘grill’.
Kebab is doner, usually lamb.
However, if you’re going to a sit down Turkish restaurant that does kebabs, then take it to mean shish/kofte.
For me, a “kebab” is any dish containing meat shaved from a large cylindrical meat skewer that spins on a special cooking device, the name of which I do not know. The meat is usually put in a wrap, a piece of bread, or on a plate, along with vegetables, maybe fries and sauces.
Mostly ‘let’s grab a kebab’ in the U.K refers to meat + salad + sauce all shoved into a pitta bread at 3am.
It’s usually lamb donner, but may be chicken shish too.
Sauce is often garlic mayo or some kind of mad ‘hot bum tomorrow’ chilli sauce.
There’s a fair chance the bloke serving you will call you ‘bossman’ and you’ll stagger home feeling on top of the world.
Filled flatbread, usually withmeat from a spit, white cabbage, a variety of vegetables and some sauce.
Döner like in Germany, NL, and other countries. The kebabs in France aren’t proper döner and not nearly as good.
Here in Finland it’s typically a shaved meat amalgamation (the less known the better) typically served either on french fries, pita bread or in a rolled up pizza along with salad and sauces
Here it’s a long strip of specially ground beef/chicken with herbs and sauce wrapped in lavash (flatbread)
Malta .. going for kebab: getting a wrap / salad from the Turkish (or similar) place. Making kebabs – meat (and veg) on long sticks.
Here in Sweden, gyros is often conflated with Döner-style kebab. The differerence is that the first variant is a Greek dish based on pork, while the other one hails from Turkey and is based on beef. Both are sometimes named “kebab” here, however (or, it just to be that way – nowaday gyros is more often named correctly).
Long thin strips of meat mix served in a triangular bread with fresh vegetables (lettuce, cabbage tomato, cucumber, onion) and at least 2 sauces (‘red’ and ‘white’, you don’t ask what’s in them, spicy sauce is optional).
When you say kebab you mean doner kebab. Where they shave meat from large stick that’s being cooked. If you want anything else, you will have to look very hard for it.
“Un kébab” , which is accompanied or not, by fries, as for the filling some shops offer a variety of (halal – so no pig) meats, but … it’s really not advisable, unless for some reason you like eating meatballs or deformed “saussage-meat” in your kebab instead of the real thing. The kebab mostly managed by North African, so French kebabs are different, from say, German kebabs, usually by the type of sauces offered, and they have both durum and flatbread cut open.
Simply saying kebab is not common. I’d say most people would think you mean lula kebab, ground meat patties on a skewer, usually served in sit down restaurants, with a side of thin flat bread and some veggies.
For doner kebab, everyone just calls them shaurma/shawerma (almost always in thin lavash bread, like durum I think? Pita style is rare). That’s what you get on a go/late at night.
More common is shish kebab, which is called shashlik.
For me it’s döner kebab or the big chunk of meat that’s slowly rotating and getting grilled. It can be a wrap ([dürüm](https://chefoodrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Il-Doner-Kebab-Vegetariano.jpg)) or a [plate](https://imageproxy.wolt.com/menu/menu-images/5fbfde58a7178590f13baaaa/19187f8e-3882-11eb-a0c9-cac3ad7a4344_2018_03_16_17_12_37.jpeg). What you are referring to as long [strips of (minced) meat](https://vidarbergum.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/adana-kebab-4.jpg) I would most likely call a csevap (from South Slavic čevap which also comes from the word ‘kebab’). In Turkish restaurants in Hungary you would get those strips under the name “Adana kebab”.
Arabic restaurants here IIRC don’t really sell “kebab”, they mostly sell hummus and falafels and other stuff.
Kebab refers to the ground beef meat on a skewer. So “doner kebab” is not a term used, we just say kebab in a wrap.
Default in Lithuania is a wrap like this https://i.postimg.cc/C5b0hvsm/kebabas.jpg
The meat is beef, pork or chicken. Vegetarian ones are made with falafel or feta cheese.
Then there is sliced cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes and usually garlic sauce.
In the Netherlands and Portugal you’ll see the chips of meat, as you described it.
I saw the long strips on a video from the UK a while ago and it really weirded me out. Some British friends told me that’s just what it usually looks like there, which weirded me out even more.
In French-speaking Belgium, we don’t use that word. For the Turkish snack/street food, we say **dürum** : it’s meat and vegetables served inside a crèpe/flatbread, a bit like burritos, but with both ends closed. Kebad is what non-Belgians call them, and they do it in some bread rather than the crèpe/flatbread.
Just saying “kebab” is not common unless you’re talking about Turkish/Middle Eastern meat on a stick, like Adana kebab. The rotiserrie meat is mostly just refered to as “döner” rather than “döner kebab”. Nobody here says “let’s go get a kebab”, it’s usually something along the lines of “let’s go get döner/shoarma”. Shoarma (shawarma) also just refers to the meat rather than a dish as a whole, but the meat itself is different from döner.
A kebab shop is usually refered to as kebabtent, dönerzaak or shoarmatent.
Kebab is an abomination of ultraprocessed meat shaven off a spit with some circular saw and put into some stale mexican tortilla.
Served in a pita, usually doner but also skewered lamb or chicken (shshlik) grilled over charcoal
for me its durum, i think it’s even more popular here than doner
usually you have bun or flatbread filled with various veggies, mayo, meat (chicken or veal) and maybe some spicy sauce. and you only eat it at night out drinking