Lamb Kofte part I

Lamb Köfte with Yogurt Sauce and Muhammara

This is not my picture. By the time I'm done cooking I'm starving and plating is something I need to learn.






This was one of the two of the 5 AMAZING meataball recipes that I was dying to try. I'm not much for Indian cuisine but I really love Moroccan and Mediterranean foods.

This recipe claims 'The Middle East on a flatbread: Turkish meatballs, a tahini-spiked yogurt sauce, and muhammara, a Syrian red pepper spread.'

But here's the catch, it's made with ground lamb.

That may not be an issue where you live but here in the L of E you will not find ground lamb. Most of the year you will not find any lamb. But now that Easter is upon us lamb has cropped up in most markets. I thought there was a chance I would find it locally.

I thought wrong.

However, while visiting the folks in the OC I told them I wanted to catch the Persian market down the road from where they live. A great little market while kind of on the dirty side has many items that I use in large inexpensive quantities and all the Middle East items I can find no where else.

It's closed it's doors since I was there.

humf!

Oh wait! the old people say, there's that Whole Food store we told you about, they'll have what you want there.

The peeps have been mentioning this Whole Food store for several months. It started by them saying it was a store that had 2 words in the name. Then they thought it was Whole Food something. So I said 'Whole Foods?' cuz you know that's a store and everybody sort of knows this. And they say no, it's like Whole Foods but not Whole Foods. This may sound a little frustrating unless you've actually met my parents. And then you'd get it. And it would be funny!

So they take us there and it? Is fantastic! They have a fabulous cheese counter with cheeses from all over. I bought a pound of Bulgarian Feta. Bulgarian Feta! Who knew Bulgarians made feta? It's a lovely sheep milk feta with a sharp flavor and creamy texture. I picked up a ginormous jar of cracked green olives for about 3 bucks. A half gallon of grapeseed oil, half a dozen exotic spices, some tea. Oh the tea isle!! Tea tea tea. I picked up a box of Earl Grey, 100 count, for the same price as Numi Earl Grey 20 count. I'm quite sure it's not organic. But it is delish. Then headed over to the dairy case. I've been wanting to try some nice Greek yogurt for some time. My store has it but it so wickedly expensive that I've yet to pick some up. Persian market is where I wanted to go for selection and price. And it did not disappoint, Greek yogurts, Indian yogurts in several brands, huge sizes and at the same price as our domestic brands. I didn't get any as the expiration dates were rather close. So I guess it did disappoint. The bulk bins had couscous, several varieties of rice and some rather exotic looking dried figs. The figs were sweet and chewy. I should have bought more.

And then. . . on to the meat counter. Meat counters rather scare me a little. Especially if I don't know what I want. You got a guy standing there waiting to measure some meat for you and there are other people waiting and it just all gets a little stressful for me. Except that day, that day I spied ground lamb. I flagged me down a meat man and grabbed a couple of pounds of ground lamb and then, right next to the lamb was osso busco. I've been meaning to make some so I grabbed four of those.

Now I was set for my next AMAZING MEATBALL RECIPE!!!

. . . . . to be continued . . . . .