Kofta

It is a very simple recipe, rich in flavor and comforting. We tend to have it with some simple herbed flatbreads, however it is also great with crusty bread or even with some plain rice!
The word kofta comes from Persian ” kufta”, meaning ‘pounded meat’. The languages of the region of the kofta’s origin have adopted the word with minor phonetic variations.
The first appearance of recipes for kofta are in the earliest Arab cookbooks.The earliest recipes are for large ground lamb meatballs triple-glazed in a mixture of saffron and egg yolk. This glazing method spread to the West, where it is referred to as “gilding” or “endoring”.
Kofta’s are found from the Indian subcontinent through central Asia, the Middle East, the Balkans, and northern Africa.

Kofta in the Jordanian Community is very similar to the Palestinian kofta. It 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.