Ramadan Recipes: Kofta Tahini by Sweet Pillar™

This dish consists of kofta skewers baked with a yogurt tahini sauce, and then topped with potatoes. Some people opt to not spend the extra time making little kofta skewers. Instead, they just press it onto the Pyrex, so it's one giant kofta pizza basically - and then top it with the sauce and potatoes. I personally like the addition of the potatoes, because it gives the kofta tahini dish an additional texture. If you notice, I leave the skin on the potatoes because most of the nutrients of the potatoes is actually in the skin so I just scrub them really well and leave them on, but you can remove the skin or remove the entire potato addition from the dish if you don't like potatoes.

The sauce is this amazing yogurt-based tahini lemony based sauce that we use for falafel sandwiches, shawerma meat sandwiches (we always use a garlic sauce for the chicken shawerma sandwich), fava bean breakfast dish called foul mddamas or on a potato dish.  Usually every time I make this, I'll end up with extra sauce (intentionally) which I store and I'll make falafel the next day and use the leftover sauce. Done and done. But no joke, it might be one of my all time favorite sauces because its so full of flavor yet feels light and smooth.

Now read on, to know how to make kofta tahini and follow the recipe steps...

Ingredients to make kofta tahini:
1 lb Ground beef (or lamb - if using lamb combine it with beef, otherwise it's too heavy)
1 Small onion
2 Garlic clove
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley
1 tbsp all spice (if you cannot find middle eastern all spice, you can mix 1/2 teaspoon of each ground cinnamon, paprika, cumin, ground cloves, nutmeg & coriander)
Salt
Pepper

Ingredients to make tahini lemon sauce:
1/4 cup tahini
3 garlic cloves minced
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup water
Salt

Steps to make kofta tahini:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Combine all the ingredients for the yogurt tahini sauce in a food processor and set aside.
3. If frying potatoes, heat up vegetable oil and fry at this point and set aside.
4. If baking potatoes, put potatoes on baking sheet and drizzle with oil and put in the oven for 10-12 minutes.
5. In food processor pulse onion, parsley, and garlic.
6. Add onion mixture to ground beef along with spices, salt and pepper.
7. Mix with your hands long enough for all the flavors to really mix together. (1-2 minutes)
8. Using your hands, make round balls then press them so they elongate and are finger-like length, forming kebab shape.
9. Using either vegetable oil or sunflower oil, sauté the kebabs in a frying pan. Sauté them about 5-6 minutes so they are brown on the outside but still slightly rare on the inside (we're going to put them back in the oven so you don't want them to overcook but instead finish cooking in the oven).
10. Place the kebabs on a Pyrex pan.
11. Pour the tahini yogurt sauce over the kebabs and top with potatoes and put in the oven for 5-7 minutes.
12. Garnish with parsley, paprika, and/or pine nuts, and serve with rice or pita bread.

For more recipes by Nadia Hubbi, check out her blog Sweet Pillar™.