İzmir Köfte

Browned and then simmered in tomato, the only köfte here that goes into a sauce at all.

Beef, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains beef.

Ingredients

the köfte

• 700 g minced beef
• 1 slice stale bread, soaked in water and squeezed
• 1 onion, grated and squeezed dry
• 1 egg
• a large handful of parsley, chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• plain flour, for rolling

the pan

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 500 g potatoes, in thick wedges
• 2 long green peppers, in pieces
• 600 g tomatoes, blended
• 1 tablespoon tomato purée
• 300 ml water
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

1. IT IS BROWNED AND THEN SIMMERED IN TOMATO, the only köfte on this site that goes into a sauce at all. Every other one is grilled or griddled and eaten dry off the fire. These are rolled into fingers, floured, fried until coloured on all sides, and then laid in a pan of tomato with potato wedges and peppers and baked for three quarters of an hour. That changes what the mixture has to be: a grilled köfte wants no binder and an open texture, and a simmered one needs bread and egg or it disintegrates into the sauce. So this is the one page here with bread in the mince, and that is a consequence of the cooking rather than a preference.
2. THEY ARE FLOURED BEFORE FRYING AND IT IS NOT OPTIONAL. A light roll in plain flour. It gives a skin that survives both the frying and the long simmer, and the flour that comes off thickens the sauce slightly. Unfloured, the surface softens in the tomato and the fingers lose their edges within twenty minutes.
3. THE BREAD IS SOAKED AND SQUEEZED, NOT CRUMBED DRY. Stale bread soaked in water and wrung out hard. Dry breadcrumbs absorb liquid from the meat and make a dense köfte; wet bread is already saturated and acts as a soft spongy scaffold that keeps the mixture loose.
4. THE POTATOES ARE FRIED SEPARATELY BEFORE THEY GO IN. Wedges browned in the same pan after the köfte come out. Raw potato in a tomato sauce takes far longer than the köfte need and absorbs the sauce rather than sitting in it, and the sauce goes dry while the potato is still hard.
5. IT IS BAKED, NOT SIMMERED ON THE HOB, AND NOT STIRRED. Everything arranged in one layer in an oven dish, the sauce poured round, and forty-five minutes at 190°C. On the hob the bottom layer catches and anything stirred breaks the köfte up. Arranged once and left alone, they come out whole.
6. The bread soaked in water and SQUEEZED HARD. The onion grated and squeezed dry.
7. The beef, bread, onion, egg, parsley, cumin, salt and pepper mixed and kneaded 5 MINUTES.
8. Rolled into 12 FINGERS about 8 cm long, then rolled LIGHTLY in plain flour.
9. The olive oil heated in a wide pan and the köfte fried in batches until coloured on all sides, about 5 MINUTES. Lifted out.
10. The potato wedges browned in the same pan 8 MINUTES. Lifted out.
11. The blended tomatoes, purée, water and salt simmered in the pan 10 MINUTES, scraping the base.
12. The köfte, potatoes and peppers arranged in ONE LAYER in an oven dish.
13. The sauce poured around them -- not over the top.
14. Baked at 190°C for 45 MINUTES. NOT stirred.
15. TESTED: the potatoes should be tender and the köfte should still be whole fingers with visible edges.
16. Left 10 minutes before serving, with bread and rice.

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