Food - Drink
The Meat Tip You Need For The Perfect Kofta
By AUTUMN SWIERS
Kofta is made by mixing ground meat with spices (coriander, garlic, cumin, turmeric, cardamom, and nutmeg) and forming the mixture into balls or tube shapes to grill, bake, or fry. The dish has a Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian origin, and the name "kofta" might have etymological roots in the Persian "koofteh," meaning "pounded meat."
The cuts of meat that people use to make kofta have changed significantly since the dish's origin in the 13th century, and the kind of meat is crucial enough to make or break the dish. The most important part of achieving that classic kofta fall-apart mouthfeel isn't necessarily the flank or animal but the meat’s fat content.
Lamb is ideal for shaping kofta because it is naturally fattier than beef, containing 8.8 grams of fat per 100-gram serving, compared to the 4.2 grams of fat of the same serving of beef. Egyptian kebab shops usually make kofta using "lyieh," a fatty cut of lamb tail, but since lyieh is difficult to find in the U.S., use ground lamb meat or a beef cut with at least 20% fat.