Koftet el Hati

Laid straight onto the grill bars with no skewer at all, which is why it is shaped short and fat.

Beef, Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains beef, lamb.

Ingredients

• 600 g minced beef
• 400 g minced lamb, with its fat
• 2 onions, grated and squeezed dry
• a large bunch of parsley, very finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons black pepper

to serve

• flatbread
• tahini sauce
• sliced onion with parsley
• grilled tomatoes and peppers

Method

1. IT IS LAID STRAIGHT ONTO THE GRILL BARS WITH NO SKEWER AT ALL, which is why it is shaped short and fat. Fingers of mince about eight centimetres long and three thick, rolled between the palms and set directly across the bars over charcoal. No skewer means nothing holding the kofta together but its own binding, so it has to be short enough not to sag and thick enough not to fall through -- and it is turned with tongs rather than by lifting a skewer. The long flat kofta pressed onto a wide blade belongs to a different tradition; this one is a grill-house item cooked a dozen at a time on the bars.
2. THE MIXTURE IS KNEADED FOR TEN MINUTES, WHICH IS LONGER THAN FEELS RIGHT. Worked hard with the heel of the hand until it is tacky and smears rather than crumbles, and lifts in one mass from the bowl. With no skewer there is nothing else keeping it on the grill, and an under-kneaded mixture drops through the bars in pieces. This is the single thing that decides whether the dish works.
3. IT IS BEEF AND LAMB TOGETHER AND THE LAMB BRINGS THE FAT. Six hundred to four hundred, with the lamb's fat left in. Beef alone is dry on a fierce grill; the lamb fat renders and bastes it. Very lean mince cannot be rescued with oil, because the fat has to be inside.
4. THE ONION IS GRATED AND SQUEEZED BONE DRY. Wrung out hard. Onion juice is the commonest reason kofta disintegrate on a grill -- the water turns to steam and pushes the mixture apart.
5. IT IS RESTED IN THE FRIDGE FOR AN HOUR BEFORE SHAPING. The salt works into the protein over that hour and the mixture becomes noticeably stickier and firmer. Shaped straight after mixing it is soft and loses its shape on the bars.
6. THE GRILL IS FIERCE AND THE KOFTA ARE TURNED ONCE. Hot coals, three or four minutes a side, turned once with tongs. Fiddled with and turned repeatedly they break; left too long they dry out, since there is no bone and no skewer to slow the heat.
7. The onions grated and SQUEEZED BONE DRY.
8. The beef, lamb, squeezed onion, parsley, allspice, cinnamon, coriander, salt and pepper combined.
9. KNEADED HARD with the heel of the hand 10 MINUTES, until the mixture is TACKY and lifts in ONE MASS from the bowl.
10. Covered and RESTED in the fridge 1 HOUR.
11. Rolled between the palms into fingers about 8 cm long and 3 cm thick.
12. Laid STRAIGHT ACROSS the bars of a fierce charcoal grill. NO SKEWER.
13. Grilled 3 to 4 MINUTES a side, TURNED ONCE with tongs.
14. TESTED: none should fall through the bars or break when turned. Any that do mean the mixture was under-kneaded or the onion was wet.
15. Served in flatbread with tahini sauce, onion and grilled vegetables.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Egypt · All recipes