[Sca-cooks] Re: More fun with Turkish food

[Christiane]

Message: 8
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 01:38:58 -0500
From: Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] More fun with Turkish food
To: SCA-Cooks maillist SCA-Cooks <SCA-Cooks at ansteorra.org>
Message-ID: <537D930F-CFE0-11D8-B362-000393A414D0 at austin.rr.com>
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Gianotta mentioned:
> I went to the other Turkish deli near me, whic is also a halal
> butcher. I wanted to try my hand at making kofte, a traditional spicy
> Turkish meatball, so I needed ground lamb.
>
> The kofte turned out great; the recipe on the spice packet I picked up
> from my provider of Turkish cheeses called for ground beef and lamb, so
> I just wnt to my regular food store for the beef. We had kofte-burgers
> for the 4th. My husband used buns, but I ate mine without bread, with
> slices of pickled green tomatoes. We both agreed, however, that
> kofte-burgers ruled.
Sounds interesting. Since you got this from a spice packet, you  don't 
have a recipe, with specific  spice amounts, do you? Anyone else?

I have a couple of kofte recipes here for you, including my husband's favorite, called, "Lady's Thighs" so named because they are paler than other kofte ...

Icli kofte (Meatballs with bulgur and a filling of minced meat with pine nuts)       
        
  500 g bulgur
250 g veal minced meat
250 g lamb minced meat
1 teaspoon red pepper
2 tablespoons cumin
3 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
2 tablespoons butter
oil (for frying)
2 large onions, finely chopped 
2 tablespoons pine nuts
100 g walnuts, finely chopped 
2 eggs, beaten
rusk crumbs
salt

   

 In a saucepan put the onions with the butter and a little bit of salt and sauté them. Add the lamb minced meat and the pine nuts and sauté until the minced meat has absorbed all the fluids and is granular. Take the mixture off the heat and add the parsley, the walnut crumbs and the salt. Spread the bulgur in a pan, add the red pepper, cumin, salt and a cup of water and knead well all the ingredients. Add the veal minced meat and knead again. 

Shape this mixture into small, long and narrow meatballs. With your finger press the edge of each meatball so as to open up a hole and stuff it with the mixture of lamb minced meat and then close it well. As soon as you have filled all the meatballs, put over the heat a saucepan with 4-5 cups of water and some salt and  as soon as the water comes to a boil, add the meatballs and let them boil for 20 minutes. Take them out with a straining spoon and let them cool off. Then dip them one by one into a mixture of egg and rusk crumbs and fry them in hot oil. These meatballs are very spicy and are served as an hors d’ oeuvre.   


Kadin Budu Kofte (Lady's Thigh Meatball) 
                 
                 1 pound ground beef, lamb, or turkey,
                 1 cup cooked white rice,
                 1.5 cups grated or very finely chopped onoins,
                 1/2 bunch chopped parsley,
                 1-2 cups flour,
                 1 egg,
                 Salt and blackpepper,
                 Frying oil.
                 
                 Mix all ingredients in a bowl.(except the flour). Shape the mixture into equal sizes of oval meatballs. Press them down in the middle to flatten them out. Dip the meatballs in flour until covered well. In a frying pan cook them until well done or nicely browned.

When the Turks are thinking of "meatball" how big are they thinking of? 

----- Larger than 1 inch, much larger in the case of the stuffed kofte, and more oval-shaped than round.

> I also want to obtain a whole leg of lamb for roasting.
If you are interested in some more lamb recipes, although probably 
non-Turkish, perhaps some of the period ones in this Florilegium file 
might be of interest:
lamb-mutton-msg   (89K)  9/ 4/01    Medieval lamb and mutton. Recipes.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-MEATS/lamb-mutton-msg.html


Thanks, I will definitely have to check them out!