kofta bi tahini

The word kofta comes from Classical Persian (kōfta), meaning “rissole”, from the verb (kōftan), “to pound” or “to grind”, reflecting the ground meat used for the meatballs.

Kofta is ground meat, mixed with onion and fresh herbs like parsley, and seasoned delicately with a few spices. There are many versions of Kofta. This one is a delicious way to use tahini. Tahini has a nutty and earthy flavour and the lemon juice cuts through that.

You can serve this kofta bi tahini with some rice, you can stuff it into a sandwich and drizzle it with more tahini sauce or you can serve it with pita bread and enjoy dipping the bread into the tahini sauce.

Ingredients:

For the kofta

500 g beef

1 onion chopped

1 cup chopped parsley

1 tomato chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon allspice

Pinch of cardamom

 

For the topping

Potatoes sliced into thin rounds and fried or boiled until they are cooked half way

 

For the tahini sauce

1 cup tahini sauce

Juice of two lemons

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 cups recently boiled water (you can replace 1 cup of the water with yogurt )

 

Instructions:

Grind meat, parsley and onions in the meat grinder using the finest disk.Run them twice

Alternatively very finely dice parsley and onion and add them to the minced meat

Add the tomato, olive oil, salt and spices and knead them into the meat mix

You can either spread the mix into a large pan to cover the entire base or you can form the mix into football shaped ovals. If you go with the flat version, make indentations in the meat with your fingertips, this will help the meat take up the flavors of the sauce

Bake the kofta in the oven for 20 minutes

Fry the sliced potatoes until they are cooked half way.

Arrange the potatoes on top of the kofta

Mix tahini and lemon juice together, the tahini will become lighter in consistency at first but it will thicken as you keep on mixing and become lighter in color

Slowly add the water while stirring to keep the mixture smooth.

Pour sauce over kofta until you cover the kofta and topping

Cover the pan with foil, poke a few holes in the foil to allow steam to escape

Bake in the oven on the lowest rack at 220 C for 20 minutes then remove the foil and cook until the sauce thickens (this requires an additional 15- 20 minutes

 

Lara khouli