Pideli Köfte

Served on bread that has already drunk the broth, so the bread is a component and not a plate.

Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef.

Ingredients

the köfte

• 700 g minced beef
• 1 onion, grated and squeezed dry
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

the broth

• 500 g beef bones with some meat
• 1 onion, halved
• 1 litre water
• 1 teaspoon salt

to assemble

• 2 pide or flatbreads, a day old, in 3 cm squares
• 300 g tomatoes, blended and sieved
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 80 g butter
• 200 g thick yoghurt

Method

1. IT IS SERVED ON BREAD THAT HAS ALREADY DRUNK THE BROTH, so the bread is a component and not a plate. The squares of day-old pide go into a warm dish and a ladleful of hot beef broth is poured over them a minute or two before anything else arrives, so they swell and go soft and savoury all the way through. Then the tomato sauce, then the köfte, then the foaming butter. An İskender uses the same bread squares and keeps them dry and crisp under the sauce; here they are deliberately saturated, and the difference between the two dishes is almost entirely what is done to the bread.
2. SO THE BROTH HAS TO BE MADE, AND IT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE DISH. Beef bones simmered an hour with an onion. Without it there is nothing for the bread to drink and the dish collapses into a worse İskender. Stock cubes give a salty liquid that tastes of nothing much; an hour of bones gives something with body.
3. THE BREAD IS A DAY OLD AND CUT IN SQUARES. Fresh bread dissolves into paste under hot broth within thirty seconds. Day-old bread has set enough to swell and hold its shape, which is the whole reason it is worth using stale bread for a dish that then soaks it.
4. THE KÖFTE ARE GRILLED DRY AND NEVER GO IN THE BROTH. They are cooked separately on a griddle and laid on at the end. Simmered in the broth they would be a sulu köfte, which is its own page; grilled, they bring char and a firm crust to a dish that is otherwise entirely soft.
5. THE YOGHURT GOES ON COLD AND AT THE SIDE. A spoonful beside, not over. Everything else on the plate is hot, soft and savoury, and the cold sharp yoghurt is the only thing cutting it.
6. The bones simmered with the halved onion and the salt in the 1 litre of water, 1 HOUR. STRAINED and kept HOT.
7. The onion grated and squeezed dry. The beef, onion, cumin, salt and pepper kneaded 5 MINUTES and chilled 30 minutes.
8. Rolled into 16 small fingers.
9. The tomatoes blended, sieved and cooked in the olive oil 12 MINUTES until thick. Kept hot.
10. The köfte cooked on a hot dry griddle 3 MINUTES a side, until well coloured. Kept warm.
11. The day-old bread cut into 3 cm SQUARES and spread in warm shallow bowls.
12. A ladleful of the HOT BROTH poured over the bread in each bowl.
13. LEFT 1 to 2 MINUTES so the bread swells and softens right through.
14. The hot tomato sauce spooned over, then the grilled köfte laid on.
15. The butter heated until foaming and poured over.
16. A spoonful of cold yoghurt placed BESIDE the köfte, and served at once.

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 Turkey · All recipes