Beef Kafta… sort of

I really and truly love food made with passion and plenty of flavor, especially when the ingredients are fresh and vibrant. While I love food from all around the world and enjoy trying new flavors, I always come back to a few favorites and one of those is Lebanese. Bright, fresh, herbaceous flavors combined with rich savory meats is such a winning combo, what’s not to love?! Recently I tried my hand at Beef Kafta, a wonderfully flavored meatball cooked on the grill. While the ingredients are simple, if you are like me, you may have forgotten a couple items at the grocery store and for this recipe. That happened to me, so I improvised, and you’ll see just a touch of Latin flavor in this Mediterranean dish.

1 Sm-Med yellow onion

3 Tablespoons Sofrito (or for sure use 1/4 cup parsley if you have it!)

1 lb ground beef (or lamb, turkey, or chicken if you like)

2 1/2 tsp 7 spice

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne (or more if you like spice)

Let’s start with the food processor, it is key for this recipe. First, we’re going to add a small to medium yellow onion, quartered along with our bright flavors. Normally and with most Lebanese dishes we would add parsley and lots of it. Unfortunately, I had no parsley. What I did have was some freshly made sofrito (onion, garlic, peppers, cilantro blended) from a Puerto Rican dish I had recently made. This gave my Kafta a bit of brightness to make up for my lack of parsley.

Next, we’re going to drain off any excess liquid and add of our spices. I used my own 7 spice blend (you can find this at some grocery stores, usually specialty ones will carry it, but I’ll add a recipe for those of you who can’t find it or happen to live in a small town like me). Dump in all of the spices, and add your meat or meat mixture to the food processor, give it a couple of whirls just enough to blend the ingredients well not enough to completely pulverize the meat.

Now that you have your meat mixture you form long meatballs that you can either place on skewers, or like me just grill as is. It was still a little cold outside when I made these so I opted for my griddle pan indoors and they cooked up splendidly in about 8 minutes or so, nicely browned on the outside. I got the griddle good and hot browned on both sides and then turned it down just a hair to let the inside finish cooking.

Serve with rice, tabbouleh, or with a pita hummus and salad like me! Pita and hummus recipes coming soon!! Let me tell you, fresh baked bread of any kind is fabulous, but a fresh pita takes up a full notch!