For bamboo skewers for satay and meat cubes:
1. soak them first
2. place a narrow sheet of aluminum foil on your grill and place the end ( where you handle them ) of the skewers on that foil to prevent them from catching fire or getting scorched.

I suggested eggs because I use them to stop hamburgers falling apart when you first put them on a grill - the raw egg binds, it doesn't have to be cooked to bind.

Ah, these are kefta then. When they make them for the Mediterranean Festival at the church, everything that goes into them is very finely chopped and the meat (usually a mixture of lamb and beef) is pressed onto the skewers so that they don't fall off. Maybe the consistency of your mixture is a bit off not allowing them to form properly?

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many variations
 

lots of ways to stop them from falling off....OUR way is to use a lot of onion....and you need some fat in the meat....dont attempt to make adana with lttle or no fat--you will fail .....but for chapli kebab on that thick skewer (the skewer of choice for us Afghans)....it wont fall off as long as the right ingredients are in the meat. :D

My mistake with the mix I think is quite simple.

I currently take the onion, garlic and fresh chillis - some roasted red peppers which were bottled in oil which I dried off and this was added to the blend -and my spicing - normally cummin, paprika and coriander and a little lemon zest - sometimes some cinamon, salt and pepper and mouli it down to a paste - I then add the herbs (varying between fresh oregano, thyme, mint - but always including parlsey stalks) and chop it a bit more. This makes this paste very wet from the onion because it's mostly "water". I then add this to the meat and mix it with some ciabatta breadcrumb. (Very authentic ........:D)

In future I'm going to chop the onions and herps and use more of a slightly less hot chilli which I'll also chop. After refrigeration it should stay on the wider skewers. The mix sounds complex and overwhelming but it's a very light touch and is to my taste and fairly close the the Lebanese (!) version of Adana I have in some places I visit - in particula in my visits to the Levante chain in Vienna. They tough me how to make their levante bread which is an enormous flat bread "painted" with yoghurt that balloons in the oven ..... I'm hungry!

I'm not mincing my own lamb but using bought mince which I think will be around 15% - although I know that 20% would be better. I'm going to try a cheaper mix and see if that also helps as I'm always buying leanest.

Thanks for the encouragement and tips.

Do you know a good Halim place in NYC or any other US cities, btw? ;)
Thanks

uk1

I chopped the onions with the herbs in the food processor first.
Then when I minced the lamb cubes , 8 -10 cubes at a time by using the "pulse" knob , I will add the mix of onion-herb to the lamb.
The other spices and chillies are added to that mixture in a separate bowl without working too long with my hands. Depending on the time they will be cooked , I'll let the mixture stand for 30 mins or if I prepare the mix in advance - the bowl goes back in the fridge but I remove it 30 mins before putting the kebabs on the skewers.

Many thanks.

The problem was that I was using a blender rather than a chopper! Too wet!

Trying again this weekend.

UPDATE
 

They stuck on a bit longer this time ....... I basically let them slip off for the last part of their cooking. They looked like they'd always been on - so only I knew.

I'm going to add egg next time to see if this helps.

Might try double mincing/grinding, or running ground/minced meat through a food processor. Not quite purees the meat but it makes it very sticky. Chinese meat balls are made this way.

Many thanks for the idea.

This has been the most frustrating cooking experience because I'm a passionate cook who tries different things all the time and I've been trying to cure this issue for years and WON'T BE DEFEATED!

The problem I have with mincing more is that in my mind the strands in a course mince seems logical to bind more than a finer mince almost by definition a wetter mince.

But this meal comes around again in a week or so - so I'm going to try using a finer mince!

Thanks again.

I don't believe that a finer mince will help.

Like I said, I process the cubes of lamb in small batches and I pulse in short 1- to 2-second bursts until the desired consistency is achieved, usually 10 to 15 pulses- as soon as I see a ball forming ( with some of the mix of onions and herbs tossed with each batch)

Anyway try both ways - one finer than the other and see how you fare. If your meat is too mushy you can form them like Shami kebabs :)