Kofta

Tabrizi Kofta (Iran) includes yellow split peas as well as minced meat
Vegetable kofta curry, served with rice from India.
Paneer-based kofta from Kolkata, India.
Fish kofta curry from the Indian subcontinent.
A vegetarian kofta
Finger-shaped kofta (Egypt), in a pita with French fries and salad.

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. In the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, koftas are usually made from lamb, beef, mutton or chicken, whereas Greek, Cypriot, and Balkan versions may use pork, beef, lamb, or mixture of the three. In India, vegetarian varieties include koftas made from potato, calabash, paneer, or banana. In Europe, kofta is often served as fast-food sandwich in kebab shops.

Koftas in India are usually served cooked in a spicy curry/gravy and are eaten with boiled rice or a variety of Indian breads. In Iran, Iraq, and Azerbaijan, koftas are served with a spiced gravy, as dry variations are considered to be kebabs. Shrimp and fish koftas are found in South India, West Bengal, some parts of the Persian Gulf, and parts of Egypt.

Names and etymology

The word kofta comes from Classical Persian kōfta (کوفته), meaning "rissole", from the verb kōftan (کوفتن), "to pound" or "to grind", reflecting the ground meat used for the meatballs.[1] The languages of the region have adopted the word with minor phonetic variation.

Variations

The meat is often mixed with other ingredients, such as rice, bulgur, vegetables, or eggs to form a smooth paste. They can be grilled, fried, steamed, poached, baked, or marinated, and may be served with a rich spicy sauce. Koftas are sometimes made from fish or vegetables rather than red meat, especially in India; deep-fried kofta made from shrimp is known in Egypt.[2] Variations occur in North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and India. According to a 2005 study done by a private food company, 291 different kinds of kofta were found in Turkey.[3] In the Arab world, kufta is usually shaped into cigar-shaped cylinders.

Early recipes (included in some of the earliest known Arabic cookbooks) generally concern seasoned lamb rolled into orange-sized balls, and glazed with egg yolk and sometimes saffron. This method was taken to the West and is referred to as "gilding" or "endoring". Many regional variations exist, notable among them include the unusually large Azerbaijani (Iranian) Tabriz köftesi, having an average diameter of 20 cm, (8 in).[4]

Koftas in the cuisine of the Indian subcontinent are normally cooked in a spiced gravy, or curry, and sometimes simmered with hard-boiled eggs. Vegetarian koftas are eaten by a large population in India. The British dish Scotch egg may have been inspired by the Indian dish Nargisi kofta ("Narcissus kofta"[5]), where hard-boiled eggs are encased in a layer of spicy kofta meat.[6] In Bengal, a region of eastern India, koftas are made from prawns, fish, green bananas, cabbage or meat, such as minced goat meat.

In Albania, specialized shops called qofteri offer qofte. They are considered to be a specialty of Korçë, where they are called kernacka. Qofte are usually served on a metal plate, salted, and topped with fresh raw onions with bread. Beer is the most popular beverage accompaniment.

In Central Asia, kofta is cooked with liberal amounts of tail fat.[7]

In Bulgaria, kofta is usually made from pork, beef, or veal, or a mixture of the three. They are usually served as a meze with tarator.

In the former Yugoslav republics, present day Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia, they are called ćufte or ćufteta. They are made of any single meat including fish, or mixture of meats, mixed with finely chopped onions, breadcrumbs, eggs, and seasonings. They are most often made by first being browned and then simmered in a roux made with paprika called crvena zaprška "red roux", or in a tomato sauce similar to Italo-American meatballs.

In Greece and Cyprus, kofta is usually fried and eaten with tzatziki or yogurt.

In Palestine, kofta, also pronounced as kafta, is made of minced meat, usually beef or veal, or a mixture of beef with lamb. It contains herbs, finely chopped onions and spices, and it is either flattened on a tray and called suneyet kofta, or made into patties; the kofta is then either baked or cooked and simmered with tomato sauce, tahini sauce, date syrup, pomegranate syrup, or tamarind syrup, and typically accompanied by potatoes or other vegetables. Another common variety of Palestinian kofta is a kofta bi batata, which consists of a bed of thinly sliced potatoes in layers under flattened kofta baked in a tray.

In Israel, meat kofta is part of the Mizrahi Jewish cuisine, and is made of minced meat, herbs, and spices, and cooked with tomato sauce, date syrup, pomegranate syrup, or tamarind syrup with vegetables or beans. A fish variety is prepared with minced fish, coriander, dried peppers (bell peppers and chili peppers), onion, black pepper, and salt, and is usually cooked in a tomato stew with chickpeas or white beans. The word kufta in Modern Hebrew, however, is used to describe a broad variety of dough dumplings, and was coined after the mention in the Jerusalem Talmud, written circa 200 CE.[8]

In Lebanon, kafta is usually prepared by mixing the ground beef with onion, parsley, allspice, black pepper, and salt.[9]

In Morocco, kufta may be prepared in a tagine.

In Pakistan, kofta is made from ground beef with onion, spices, and salt. Nargisi kofta with hard boiled egg encased in spicy kofta are also popular.

In Jordan, they are usually made of beef, chicken, lamb, or a mixture of chicken and beef with allspice, parsley, mint, onion, black pepper, and salt and are fried in olive oil or cooked in tomato or pomegranate stews.

In Romania, a local variety of kofta is known as chiftele or chiftea. They are usually made from minced pork, mixed with mashed potatoes and spices, then deep-fried. They are served with pilaf or mashed potatoes.

Modern

Chef Greg Malouf prepares a variation of stuffed kofte that is similar to the traditional stuffed içli köfte, but instead of lamb the kofta is made from a vegetarian spiced pumpkin and bulgur mixture and filled with a walnut-feta stuffing.[10]

See also

References

  1. Alan S. Kaye, "Persian loanwords in English", English Today 20:20-24 (2004), doi:10.1017/S0266078404004043.
  2. Abdel Fattah, Iman Adel (5 December 2013). "Bites Fil Beit: Koftet el Gambari – Shrimp kofta". Daily News Egypt. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
  3. "Türkiye'nin tam 291 köftesi var" [Turkey has 291 meatballs]. Sabah (in Turkish). 6 March 2005.
  4. Oxford Companion to Food, s.v. kofta
  5. "Nargisi meaning in Hindi - Meaning of NARGISI in Hindi - Translation". Dict.hinkhoj.com. Retrieved 2016-09-16.
  6. Oxford Companion to Food, s.v. kofta and Scotch egg
  7. Tilsley-Benham, Jill (1986). "Sheep with Two Tails: Sheep's Tail-Fat as Cooking Medium in the Middle East". Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery. The Cooking Medium. p. 48 via Google Books.
  8. "Maachalim LaChag" מאכלים לחג [Holiday Food] (in Hebrew). The Academy of the Hebrew Language. 14 March 2013.
  9. "Basic Kafta Recipe by dianak". Retrieved 7 September 2016.
  10. Malouf, Greg; Malouf, Lucy (2008). Turquoise: A Chef's Travels in Turkey. Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0-8118-6603-3.
  • The dictionary definition of kofta at Wiktionary
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