My quick and cheaper take on Kofta Kebabs (Turkish inspired serves 2 greedy people)

This recipe is my ‘cheapskate’ take on a recipe I watched on ‘Celebrity Master Chef’. The main reasons it is cheaper is because I use beef with 12- 20% instead of the more traditional lamb mince. Not only does this make the cost of the meat cheaper, it also means there is no need to use an egg. What this also means is the recipe is quicker.

I love to go low carb with mine, and serve it with a salad and  some kind creamy sauce such as a garlic sauce or thousand island dressing.

 

Ingredients

For the kebab

500g Mince beef with a fat content of at least 12%

2 tsb of cumin seeds

Seeds  taken from 6-7 Cardon pods ( simply cut a slit in each cardamom pod and scrape out it’s seeds)

1 tsb of chilli flakes (optional)

The juice of 1 lemon (or lime if that is all you got)

½ tsp of salt

1 tsb of black pepper

Salad

½ medium sized cumber, chopped

8 cherry tomatoes, or 2 vine ripe tomatoes, chopped

½ medium sized red onion (or white if that’s all you have)

Romaine or iceberg lettuce, chopped.

1 large or 2 medium peppers, chopped and fried alongside the kebabs with just salt and pepper.

Thousand Island Dressing (Mix 3 tbsp ketchup, 4 tbsp mayo, 1 tbsp Worcester sauce) or garlic sauce (Mix 1 tsp of garlic garnuals/power with 5 tbsp of yoghurt)

Equipment

Pestle and Mortar

Frying Pan

Spatula

Large Bowl

Method

Place spices into the frying pan (there’s no need to preheat it) and on a medium heat toast until fragrant. Do not go over 2 minutes or you’ll risk burning the spices.

Now turn off frying pan

Now throw toasted spices into the pestle and mortar and grind until powder.

Place spice powder into large bowl

Follow with the beef mince into the large bowl along with lemon juice and either using your hands or a fork mix the mixture until well combined (I use gloved hands, as the gloves I use are disposable, as I find lemon tends to burn my hands)

Next roll the mixture into 6 mini burger patties, being sure to leave a dent in the middle of each burger. I am told this is to prevent the patties from puffing up into meat balls. Set aside patties onto a plate.

Wash hands

Turn on frying pan to a medium heat and allow the frying pan to start emitting smoke. You need the frying pan to do this for the beef to have a char.

Cook patties 5 minutes per side for well done, or 3 minutes per side for medium rare (funnily enough when I cook mince beef, I am partial to cook it well done as I like that gritty texture, weird I know).

Serve with the combined chopped salad ingredients, and sauce of your choice, and pitta bread if desired.