meat | thegingerbreadmum

Tag Archives: meat

Kofte

Posted on May 25, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

There’s no doubt my offspring loves meat. How could he not when he’s half Australian?! The other night I made him a fish pie. He’s had something similar before and eaten it but not with any great enthusiasm. This time I put a nice topping of mashed potato and carrot on the top with some fresh bread crumbs and grated cheese. Lots of grated cheese. I was hoping the cheese (one of his favourite foods) would encourage him to eat the fish. To skip to the end of the story, he had slow cooked lamb for dinner, part of the leftovers we were eating, and was very happy about it!

This recipe has a little bit of spice in it (ground cumin). If you’re not sure about your little one having spices, you can leave it out without any problem.

KOFTE

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Makes about 16
Freezable

400g lamb mince
1/4 onion, diced as finely as possible or coarsely grated
1/4 tsp ground cumin
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint
A little oil for greasing the grill pan
Yogurt to serve

Heat a grill pan over high heat.

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together until combined. Shape into short sausages about 5cm in length.

Turn the grill pan down to medium heat and brush the bars lightly with oil.

Cook the kofte for about 10 minutes until just cooked through (they’ll be quite chewy if you cook them too long), turning every few minutes onto each of their four ‘sides’ so they cook evenly.

Serve with yogurt as a dipping sauce.

Variations:

use 1 shallot instead of the onion for a lighter sweeter flavour
used dried herbs rather than fresh
add some herbs to the yogurt dip
hide some vegetables in the mixture

Other uses:

dip them into houmous
serve in a pita bread or wrapped in a flatbread with salad

Mini beef burgers

Posted on May 18, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

I also think of these as mini burgers with hidden veg. You could add lots of different vegetables. Parsnip and sweet potato immediately come to mind, and of course onion. Cooking the vegetables first means you can cook the burgers fairly quickly. Of course, add which ever herbs you like, fresh or dried. If you don’t want to fry them you could bake them in the oven.

They’re a great finger food either on their own or dipped into homemade tomato sauce. Or keep them round rather than flattening them, and add them to pasta and homemade tomato sauce for a version of spaghetti and meatballs.

Another great meal to have in your freezer.

MINI BEEF BURGERS

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Makes about 25
Freezable

250g beef mince
1 medium carrot, finely grated
1/2 courgette/zucchini, finely grated
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 egg yolk
some breadcrumbs (optional)

Put the grated carrot and zucchini in a microwave-safe bowl together with 1 tbsp water. Cook for 2-3mins on medium until tender. Drain off as much liquid as possible.

Mix all the ingredients together except for the breadcrumbs. Season if you wish. If the mixture is too wet to hold its shape when formed into small balls, add some breadcrumbs a spoonful at a time. Shape into small balls about 3cm in diameter.

Heat a small frying pan over a low heat (otherwise the outside of the burgers will burn before the inside cooks). Place the balls in the pan, flattening them out into burgers. Fry them in batches about 5 minutes on each side until cooked through.