Name: Aegean-Style Koftes
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Turkey
Ingredients: 1½ tablespoons unsalted butter, melted; 3 tablespoons sweet Turkish pepper paste; Salt and freshly ground black pepper; 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley; 2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped; ½ teaspoon dried Turkish kekik or Mediterranean oregano; ½ cup crumbled crustless day-old bread; 1 garlic clove, crushed; ½ cup chopped onion; ½ cup chopped scallion, white part only; 1 teaspoon Marash or Aleppo pepper; 1 pound ground beef or lamb; 1 small mildly hot green pepper, such as Anaheim, chopped; 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil; ½ cup grated sheep’s milk cheese, such as kasseri or kashar; ½ teaspoon ground cumin

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking

By Paula Wolfert

Published 2009

About

I learned this recipe for light, juicy, butter-tender beef or lamb meatballs from a motel chef in the town of Assos on the North Aegean coast of Turkey. Motel chef? Yes, indeed. My friend Ayfer Ünsal took me to the Terrace Motel, assuring me that the chef, Ilker Kaya, was immensely talented and that his koftes were divine. How right she was.

In Ilker’s recipe, the koftes are very slowly poached in an onion sauce scente