Name: Kufteh Tabrizi (Giant Stuffed Meatballs in Broth)
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 1 h 30 min
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Iranian
Ingredients: 600 g minced beef; 80 g rice; 80 g yellow split peas; 1 onion; 0.5 leek; 20 g parsley; 1 tbsp dried tarragon or savory; 1 tsp dried mint; 1 tsp ground turmeric; 2 tsp salt; 0.5 tsp black pepper; 4 hard-boiled eggs; 40 g walnuts; 4 dried apricots; 1 tbsp dried barberries; 2 onions; 3 tbsp oil; 0.5 tsp ground turmeric; 2 tbsp tomato paste; 2 L water; 1 tsp salt; 2 sheets lavash or other flatbread

Ingredients

4servings

minced beef600 g
rice · cooked and cooled80 g
yellow split peas · cooked and cooled80 g
onion · grated and squeezed hard1
leek · white part, finely chopped0.5
parsley · chopped20 g
dried tarragon or savory1 tbsp
dried mint1 tsp
ground turmeric1 tsp
salt2 tsp
black pepper0.5 tsp
Filling
hard-boiled eggs · peeled4
walnuts · roughly chopped40 g
dried apricots · or prunes4
dried barberries · optional1 tbsp
Broth
onions · thinly sliced2
oil3 tbsp
ground turmeric0.5 tsp
tomato paste2 tbsp
water2 L
salt1 tsp
lavash or other flatbread · to tear into the broth2 sheets

Steps

Simmer the yellow split peas for about 20 minutes until soft, and boil the rice in plenty of water for 12 minutes. Drain both and let them cool completely.
⏲ 20 min
Broth: fry the onions in the oil over medium heat for 10 minutes and set a handful aside for the filling. Add the turmeric and tomato paste, fry 1 minute, then pour in the water and salt and bring to the boil.
⏲ 11 min
Work the beef with the salt for 5 minutes, until it turns sticky: it should cling to your hand and start to stretch.
⏲ 5 min
Add the rice, split peas, squeezed onion, leek, herbs, turmeric and pepper, and work it another 5 minutes until it holds together as one mass.
⏲ 5 min
Divide into four. With wet hands, flatten one into a thick disc on your palm, put an egg, walnuts, apricot, barberries and some fried onion in the middle, close it round them and roll it smooth, with no cracks.
Turn the broth down to a gentle simmer and lower the kufteh in one at a time on a ladle. Leave them alone for the first 15 minutes: moved before the outside sets, they split.
⏲ 15 min
Half-cover and simmer gently for 60 minutes, basting every 20 minutes and turning them with two spoons. They are done when the middle of the meat layer reads 71°C or more.
⏲ 60 min
Serve the broth first, with the bread torn into it. The kufteh follow on a separate plate, cut in half so the filling shows.
⏲ 2 min

Variations

Changing the filling. Prunes instead of apricots, more fried onion, barberries for sourness. What they share is that each is already cooked or needs no cooking.
Barberries in the broth. A handful of dried barberries in the broth as it reduces adds a sharp edge.
Smaller. Short of time, divide the mixture into eight, fill with walnuts and apricot only, and simmer 40 minutes.

More detail and the reasons why (1)

With a bird inside. Some versions wrap the meat round a small stuffed bird and stew it whole, which makes the ball larger still — the Azerbaijani one is known for a diameter of some 20 centimetres.

Tips

Do not touch it for the first 15 minutes. Before the outside sets, a ball this big can split under its own weight. The broth should barely move, not bubble.
The broth is the first course. Traditionally the cooking broth is served first, with sangak or lavash torn into it, and the kufteh after. One pot, two plates.

More detail and the reasons why (4)

The name is the kneading. Kufteh comes from the Persian kuftan, "to beat" or "to grind". Spaghetti and meatballs is the dish that avoids the working: "the salt dissolves the myosin and the working links it into a network, which is the first step of making a sausage." It replaces that network with a panade. A ball larger than a fist that has to hold together for an hour in broth needs the network, so the salt goes in first and the meat is worked on its own for a long time.
Only cooked things go inside. Boiled egg, fried onion, walnuts, dried fruit. The only thing the pot has to cook is the outer layer of meat, and the temperature in the middle of that layer tells you when it has.
Grate the onion and squeeze it. As wrapping and sealing puts it, "A dumpling bursts because of water in the filling". Here the meat is the wrapper, so water in the mixture becomes a crack.
The rice and split peas go in cooked. Iraqi dolma puts raw rice into vegetables and leaves room for it — "The rice doubles; a full shell splits." A ball whose shell is the meat has no such room, so the grains go in having already done their swelling.

The basics behind this dish

Cooking basics →

More of the same kind

Main course →

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