Sulu Koefte

 This recipe was recommended to me from a co worker at the office. She is Turkish from the far east of Turkey. That dish is a family favourite for her Grandparents. She just gave me the basic ingredients and told me to check the Internet for my choice of preparation. Her family loves it with yogurt sauce.

I found a lot of recipes and a couple of YT videos. As always I made my own version. Since I have leftovers stored for Monday, I will give some of them to my coworker to hear her critique.

I bought some of the ingredients at my local Turkish supermarket.

Recipe for 3:

350 g beef mince, 2 yellow onions, 5 garlic cloves, 4 tbsp tomato paste, 3 tbsp hot paprika paste, 2 tsp dried mint, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp salt and pepper

3 tbsp washed medium grain pilaw rice, 2 tbsp bulgur, washed

1,2 l water, 1 tsp veg stock paste, 5 small potatoes

1 egg separsted, 3/4 cup yogurt 

Flour

Grate one onion. Mince 3 garlic and toss that with 2 tbsp tomato paste, 1 tbsp hot paprika paste, 1 tsp mint, cumin, smoked paprika, salt and pepper. Add rice and bulgur. Separate the egg and add the egg white to the beef.

Mix it very well with your hands. Now use a large plate and put a good amount of flour on it. Roll 1,5 mm balls. Size of your thump nail. 

If you need to roll a lot more than 350 g of beef, better get a couple of friends or family around the table to help.

Chop the second onion and the other garlic and fry it in oil, add tomato and paprika paste. Peel the potatoes and cut them in bite size chunks. Add them to the pot. 

Pour in the water and add the veg stock. Now dump all beef balls in. Stir well and bring to a boil. Add salt and pepper. Reduce the heat and cook for 25 min. Mix yogurt and egg yolk and more dried mint. To prevent the mix from curdeling, make some temp ecchange by adding a soup ladle of hot broth to it. Then dump the mix in the soup.

Chop some parsley to finish and sprinkle some paprika powder on top of the plates