POLOKWANE – You might have read the name of this dish and though ‘What are Koftas?’.
Kofta is a family of meatball or meatloaf dishes found in the Indian subcontinent, Caucasian, Middle Eastern, Balkan, and Central Asian cuisines. In the simplest form, koftas consist of balls of minced or ground meat (usually beef, chicken, lamb, or pork) mixed with spices and/or onions.
Ingredients
– 500g lamb mince
– 1 egg, lightly beaten
– 1 x KNORR Naturally Tasty Moroccan Chicken Recipe Mix
– 1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained
– 2 tomatoes, chopped
– half an English cucumber, sliced
– a handful of fresh coriander, chopped
– 15ml fresh lemon juice
– salt and ground black pepper
– 50g butter
– 1 red onion, chopped in quarter chunks
– 1 white onion, chopped in quarter chunks
– 100g baby spinach
Method
– Place 8 wooden skewers or kebab sticks in cold water, and let them soak for 15 minutes. This will prevent them from scorching.
– In a mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the lamb mince, egg and the contents of the sachet of KNORR Naturally Tasty Chilli Moroccan Chicken. It’s easiest to do this using your hands.
– Divide the mince mixture into 8 equal portions. Take one of the portions and mould it around a skewer, creating a sausage-like shape. Do the same with the remaining mince portions, place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper, then put them in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.
– At this point, preheat the oven to 180 °C.
– Place the drained chickpeas into a separate large mixing bowl and add the chopped red tomatoes, cucumber, fresh coriander and lemon juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper and place in the fridge to chill.
– In a pan, melt the half the butter and add the chopped red and white onion. Gently cook the onion over a medium-low heat until soft and sweet.
– While the onions are cooking, melt the remaining butter in separate large frying pan. Remove the koftas from the fridge and place them in the pan, making sure they don’t touch. Fry for about 3 minutes or each side, or until lightly browned.
– Arrange the koftas on the paper-lined baking tray and place in the hot oven and cook for a further 8-10 minutes or until Lamb is cooked through.
– To serve, arrange a bed of baby spinach leaves on each of four plates. Top each plate with two lamb koftas and some sweet fried onions and serve immediately with the chickpea salad.
This recipe was provided by What’s for Dinner.
