Kofta recipe -- delicious!

[Guest guest]

I got this recipe from _Innards and Other Variety Meats_ by Jana and

Margaret Gin, which is starting to look like a real treasure even though

I've barely started trying its ideas. To give you an idea, here's the

table of contents:

Brains & Sweetbreads 6

Tongue 22

Heart 36

Liver 42

Kidneys 54

Tripe, etc. 66

Charcuterie 82

Heads, Feet & Tails 90

Other Offal 116

Basics 134

I've pretty much always eaten heart plain with salt after a brief

simmering, but I was interested in a little variety, and I had some lamb

hearts and ground lamb on hand, so this was a natural. Here's the recipe

as I made it, which is only slightly different from the printed version.

1 1/2 lb lamb heart, ground

1 lb 2 oz fatty ground lamb

1 medium-large onion minced

2 eggs beaten

1t ground cinnamon

2t ground coriander

2t freshly ground black pepper

1t Celtic sea salt

Salt and hot sauce to taste

I just Cuisinarted the lamb hearts. It's not quite the same as grinding,

but an 11-cup Cuisinart does a passable imitation, 2 hearts at a time, and

I didn't see any need to break out my monster grinder, which I use for

large batches of sausage. A 7-cup Cuisinart might only be up to grinding 1

heart at a time. The problem with putting in more heart at a time is that

the grind (or the tear-and-mince, more like) gets to be very uneven, so you

should only put a tiny amount of meat into the bowl relative to its maximum

capacity.

Anyway, just mix all the ingredients pretty thoroughly in a bowl, stick it

in the fridge for a couple hours to let the flavors blend, and then

cook. Traditionally, these were formed into balls or shaped onto skewers

and then grilled, but you could also broil them or cook them like burgers

on a skillet. Due to the weather I just cooked them on the stove, and

while I can imagine that charcoal-grilling them would add another dimension

of flavor, they're incredibly delicious even without it.

Admittedly this is just another hamburger-plus recipe, but the heart and

the lamb flavor make a world of difference. With salt and abundant hot

sauce (I used Tabasco) it's a marvelously toothsome treat, and a great way

to eat heart. Highly recommended.

As a point of interest, the book suggests serving them in pita bread with

tomatoes, radishes, cucumbers and bell peppers, and hot sauce over

everything -- sort of like a meat-based replacement for falafel, I

guess. I didn't have any of the vegetables on hand so I just ate them

straight, and I didn't feel they missed anything. Just to reiterate,

wow! (And make sure to cook them very rare!)

-

[Guest guest]

At 01:34 PM 1/16/05 -0500, you wrote:

>

>I got this recipe from _Innards and Other Variety Meats_ by Jana and

>Margaret Gin, which is starting to look like a real treasure even though

>I've barely started trying its ideas. To give you an idea, here's the

>table of contents:

Thanks, ! I was just about to post asking what I should do with

these two pig hearts I just realized I have. Unless there's another

pig-specific recipe in that thar handy dandy book, I may just modify this

one a bit, I've got a bunch of lamb left too.

MFJ

Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or

kings - stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once

again. ~Greg Bear

[Guest guest]

Can you post the tongue recipe from the book?

Always looking for more tongue recipes! LOL

Darrell

[Guest guest]

Darrell-

>Can you post the tongue recipe from the book?

Gosh, there are tons, but I'll post a couple.

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