King of Kebabs (Kofta Kounts)

Kebabs: once you master this, you will truly be the Monarch of junk food that’s also kinda healthy so you don’t get scurvy. Not a particularly good monarch, mind you, but like not awful either. An alright one. Not really Louis XVI (The only French monarch to be executed) but you’re no Trajan either (the Emperor who expanded roman control to its greatest extent). You’re probably more of a Queen Anne, who was basically ‘eh’ (for a British Monarch). Look at this, Kebabs and learning, I’m bringing you the whole package for the last issue. Spiced KoftaServes; This will make about 8 pieces of tasty meat, so I guess it really just depends on how much you want the meat sweats.

What you Need

A knife and board.A baking tray/ frying pan.A big ol’ bowl.A smaller bowl.A spatula or fork or something.Skewers if you want.

Ingredients

Meatballs:500g of Lamb (or beef) mince.2 tsp ground cumin.2 cloves of garlic, or 2 tsp of Garlic powder.A cup of Fresh coriander.A dozen or so sprigs of mint.1 tsp chili flakes.Salt & Pepper.Olive oil/ Sunflower oil. Everything Else:4 Pita breads.1 cup of yogurt.Another dozen sprigs of fresh mint.A cucumber.1 lemon's worth of juice.Some rocket, or whatever salad stuff you like.

How do I make this?

1. Chop your Coriander and Mint up real fine. If you’re using fresh garlic, chop it up as well. Crush it with the flat of your knife first to make life easier.
2. Add your mince, chopped garlic and herbs, and dried herbs to your big bowl. Add about a tsp of salt as well here. Mix everything up so that all the green flecks from your herbs are reasonably well distributed.
3. Shape your meat mix into 8 pieces that are sausage shaped, and hopefully about the same size. Look at the biggest one and pinch a piece off the end.
4. Put some oil in the frying pan. Heat the pan. Take the piece of meat you pinched off and cook it. Taste it. Is it lacking in flavour or whatever? Maybe sprinkle a little salt over the rest of them. (If you want to bake them, just do this part with the baking tray and oven)

• If you’re using skewers, you probably should have soaked them in water, but honestly this only works about half the time so I just stick them in at the end and pretend they were there the whole time.

1. To cook your Kofta, in the frying pan heat the oil first and cook it on a medium to high heat, turning occasionally, until it’s all dark brown. In the oven, Cook it at 200 for about 17 minutes, or until it’s sort of brown but not burnt to crap.
2. Take them out and let it rest while you make everything else to go with them.

Making Kofta Part 2, other stuff.

1. Clean your knife and board so everything doesn’t taste like coriander and garlic.
2. Add your yogurt and lemon together in a small bowl.
3. Chop your mint. Add that too.
4. Finely chop your cucumber, (Or you can even grate it if you want, it’s easier) and then add it to the bowl of yogurt.
5. Mix it all up. You’ve got Tzatziki now. You didn’t even know what was happening and now you have Tzatziki. Go you.
6. Heat up your pita breads, toast them, or use the oven.
7. Put some of whatever salad you want into the warm pitta. Put two pieces of kofta on top. Add a generous portion of tzatziki, and hotsauce if you want.
8. You have made a Kebab. You are no longer beholden to ‘Big Kebab’ and there tireless capitalist urgings, you’re a free elf.

 TipsYou can do this with quorn mince for veggies, but anything else isn’t really Kofta, Chickpeas and beans are just falafels, and if you want other veg just roast some courgette and peppers and cover it in Tzatziki. I like my stuff slightly spicy, so I usually add some Harissa (North African chilli paste) and Tabasco to my kebab. Don’t use Sriracha because it has a very different flavour palate and won’t taste as awesome as it usually does.  On behalf of the UCC Express team, I would like to thank Xander for his work on the publication over the last few years. - Rob, Editor-in-Chief