According to that font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, “…in the simplest form, koftas consist of balls of minced or ground meat—usually beef or lamb—mixed with spices and/or onions…” Last night, I had to make something that consumed some defrosted lamb chops before they became good for only consumption by the walking carpets and that also consumed a reasonable number of eggs. As you can see, the girls in the coop have been working overtime…

A quick google (is this a Scrabble-acceptable word yet?) brought me to a contender at ITV.com:

For the koftas:

1 kg minced lamb
½ onion, peeled and finely grated
4 tsp ground cumin
4 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
½ large bunch fresh coriander, finely chopped
½ large bunch fresh parsley, finely chopped
Salt and pepper

For the sauce:

3-4 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp paprika
½ tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp tomato purée
2x 400 g tins chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp each chopped fresh parsley and coriander
A pinch of granulated sugar
1 egg, per person
Baguette, to serve

I was going to mince the lamb once I boned it but that got a little too hard i.e. I was getting hungry…so Mod 1 was to dice the lamb and brown it with the ingredients for the koftas above; Mod 2 substituted two teaspoons of crushed (store bought) coriander.Mod 3 did away with the pinch of granulated sugar because I forgot.

Once the lamb was browned, it was added to the sauce mix . At the same time, I tossed a cup of rice into the rice cooker (after, of source, rinsing the rice three times to remove any dust or residues). The interesting thing about this recipe is that the eggs are cooked sitting on top of the mix. I left this a little late and was still waiting when the ‘ready’ button popped on the rice cooker. I probably should have dropped the eggs in about ten minutes earlier so that everything all came together at the same time.

As you can see, one of the eggs broke during addition but this wasn’t much of a biggie in the big scheme of things and it came out reasonably close to the image on the original ITV recipe:

As the original recipe was for a mince dish, serving would have been a doddle: because I diced the lamb instead of mincing it, I had not factored in the extra difficulty in scooping out the eggs amidst the chunks of lamb without causing the eggs to break apart. A lesson for next time although, in all truthfulness, cooking the eggs in the kofta mix is a  bit of a novelty but could be just as easily cooked separately and laid on top of the kofta mix and rice. This would let the eggs retain a flavour distinct from the spices of the kofta mix – as it is the eggs only really provide a textural contrast to the rice and kofta.

The ultimate test is of course the taste test. Despite the quantity of spices in the kofta and sauce, the taste was nice but nothing special although I did overcook aka burn the onion and spices as I got distracted in the laundry at a critical moment + we have been wondering if we need to turn over our spices more often to keep them fresh and active. I think that this is more down to me than the original recipe so I will report back after I have another crack at this, next time using minced meat..and paying more attention to the heat for the spices….

There are times, when I working at home alone, that I kinda lose track of time and get so immersed in a job that all of a sudden it’s dark and I haven’t really thought too much about dinner…tonight was one of those times when I had given it some thought but hadn’t gone much past that…

The ‘girls’ in the chook house have really ramped up production and we have eggs coming out our ears at the moment so pretty much any food ideas need to include some eggy aspects. I also had some sausage meat in the freezer and the idea of a sausage and egg pie had a certainly appeal for a misty mid-winter night. Finding a recipe was harder than I thought as I am not particularly pastry-confident but I was amazed at the number of sausage and egg pies that were made with whole sausages and precooked whole eggs.

I found a mix for a Coronation Gala Pie that sounded interesting but decided in the end to go for as more traditional pastry-based one (one has to face one’s fears some time!). All was going well til I sent to retrieve the pastry that I thought was in the big freezer in the garage – must have used that for something else because that particular cupboard was bare of anything resembling pastry. I was too lazy to go to the effort of making a batch of pastry but remembered that the gala pie had used a bread base instead of the dreaded pastry.

I’d made a loaf of fresh bread last night and while this was a little too fresh to be an ideal pan liner, it did the trick – one thing I really like about home made bread is that it has very big slices that allow great coverage of the inside of the pan…tray…thing…I mixed the sausage meat with a decent squirt of tomato sauce and some tomato paste; a teaspoon each of coriander seeds, chili and curry powder, and some grated carrot left from our burgers the other night. I laid this over the bread lining the tray before whisking up five eggs seasoned with S&P and pouring that over the tray and filling any gaps in the meat.

The ‘lid’ was my last slice of bread, pressed down into the mix so that it would soak in and topped off with grated cheese also left over from burgers…40 minutes at 200 degrees and it was all done. I’ve started lining my trays with baking paper instead of relying on a greasy wipe for a clean release, and this one popped out nicely like a good poppy-out thing should…served up with four vegetables and there’s dinner…

Scrambled eggs with tuna | Healthy Food Guide.

I started work before sun-up this morning….had one of those starts where I couldn’t get back to sleep so got up just to do something; got on a bit of a roll playing catch-up after being immersed in a  three day think tank since Monday morning – long days but really stimulating…

Anyway…a cuppa tea and a couple of large coffees fuelled me through the day and it was only as the sun started to disappear and the temperature plummeted, then I started to feel rather peckish. In addition to not putting the fire on early enough (like at least an hour before the sun and the heat disappear), I’d also been too engaged to remember to put some bread on…I’d seen this recipe a while back but we hadn’t any small cans of fish, salmon here not tuna (the dolphin thing), but tonight I found all the makings – not complex, three eggs, a little milk, some seasoning ( a flash way of saying ‘salt and pepper’), and a small tin of salmon – and had it knocked up and on some thawed buns in less than five minutes…

Very tasty, very filling and all it might have needed as a minor improvement would have been a little cheese grated over the top. I did change from the recipe slightly in mashing the salmon to deal to any bone etc and cooked the eggs and fish together for another couple of minutes on top of the 90 seconds stated in the recipe…

Now fed and ready for the ‘live’ Coro meets Irwin Allen episode…who dies…who lives? How long will they drag it out??