Lamb Kofte

We love to eat all sorts of foods here, and the kids enjoy the variety of flavours. When we found some lamb on sale at the local grocery, we went in search of a new recipe. We've used lamb before, but we wanted something different.

I came across this recipe for lamb kofte, and we decided to give it a go. It's basically Turkish meatballs, and was to be served on a flatbread.

We tweaked the recipe a bit due to availability of ingredients and Bobble's dietary needs (low sodium).

Lamb Kofte

Yogurt sauce:

• 1c greek yogurt
• 2T tahini
• 3T fresh lemon juice

Köfte:

• 1.5# ground lamb
• 2T dried mint
• 1T dried minced onion
• 4 minced garlic cloves
• 3T paprika
• 1T ground cumin
• 1/2t sea salt
• 1t ground black pepper
• 1/4t cayenne pepper

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• Flatbread or Na'an
• 2T olive oil
• 2 onions cut into 1/4" to 1/3" slices

Yogurt Sauce:

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Refrigerate until needed.

Kofte:

1) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2) Mix together lamb and spices (up to the dashed line in ingredient list) in a large bowl. Roll into 1 1/2" meatballs and arrange on lined baking sheet.

3) Preheat oven to 300F. Tear a piece of foil about the size of a cookie sheet and set on counter next to stove. Heat large skillet (medium-high) and add flat bread or naan to pan, one at a time, cooking until browned (~2min per side). Set bread on foil and continue until all are heated. Wrap in the foil and place in oven to keep warm.

4) Add 1T of oil and onions to same skillet and sautee over medium-high heat until golden brown (~8min).

5) Place cooked onions on one side of a large baking dish (like a casserole dish), and place in oven to keep warm.

6) Add 1T of oil to same skillet (same heat) and sautee half of the meat balls until they are cooked through (~7min). Place cooked meatballs in other half of baking dish in oven to keep warm, and repeat with remaining uncooked meatballs (adding oil if skillet dries out).

You can serve these however you wish. The original recipe shows them on a flatbread, dressed with the sauteed onions, yogurt sauce, and muhammara. I didn't include the muhammara in this post, though you can find it in the original recipe. I cannot tell you my thoughts on it since we could not find pomegranate syrup, and hubby tried to make it with what he thought was a clever substitute. He thought we had some cranberry pomegranate juice and figured that would be close enough to make his own syrup with. First, I think that sounds gross, and isn't what the recipe called for. Second.... it was cranberry grape juice, not pomegranate. He didn't read the label.I think that the muhammara my hubby made was gross, but it also was made all sorts of wrong. I don't know what it would have been like if it had been made as the recipe called, but I'm not a fan of sweet things with savoury things anyway, and pomegranate syrup sounds sweet to me.

The kids loved the meal, and so did hubby. I loved it without his attempt at muhammara, and ate it without that. Hubby originally served the flat bread cut into pieces to dip in sauce, but then realized it's much better all held within the flatbread. We didn't use naan, but we both agreed it would have been fabulous on naan.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff was not compensated for this post. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.