In one of the "Chicken Translation" posts I mentioned a dish that had been erroneously translated translated as "Sensitive meatballs." After a couple of weeks in Greece, I found myself with a serious hankering for food with a little spice in it, so I decided to make them.

The word köfte, with regional variations such as kufta, kofta, keftes, is not an easy one to translate. It is frequently translated as "meatballs" and that is one of its incarnations, but there are köfte that have no meat whatsoever. Greece has its "kolokythokeftedes" (deep fried fritters made with zucchini) and Turkey there are köfte made of little more than bulgur, flour and water. Of these, the king is undoubtedly içli köfte, or stuffed köfte. They consist of a shell made of fine bulgur with the addition of water, flavorings, flour or semolina, meat (or not) and sometimes an egg, and a filling based on ground meat and onion with optional butter, pine nuts, currants, walnuts and other ingredients. They are either deep fried or boiled.

To make the shells, take a couple cups of bulgur and a cup and a half of semolina and wet with about a cup and a half of water and let them stand.

 While the bulgur is soaking, fry a pound of lean ground beef in one stick of butter (yes, you read right). You can use less but it won't be the same. Once the beef is browned, add four chopped onions, a teaspoon each of red flake pepper (Aleppo pepper), black pepper and cumin. You can also add some pepper and tomato paste for flavor, and salt to taste. Other optional ingredients are walnuts, pine nuts, currants... I added some dried barberries this time. Cook uncovered until the onion is transparent, them remove from the heat and turn into a shallow pan to cool.

While the  meat mixture is cooling, grate an onion into the bulgur/semolina mixture, add an egg, a couple teaspoons of pepper paste, a little cumin and salt.  Knead this mixture well until it has stiffened up well.

Your filling should be set up by now. "Congealed" doesn't sound very nice, but with all that butter, why mince words? 

Take a piece of the bulgur mixture about the size of an egg, roll into a ball,  then wet your finger and poke it into the center. Squeeze the dough along your finger, then start to press it against the palm of your hand - which you'll also want to wet  with water - to start opening it up, just like a long pinch pot, turning as you go to keep it even. Put in as much filling as it will take, then narrow the end and with wet fingers, seal the end.

When the köfte are all done (you will undoubtedly have either too much meat or too much dough, it's just a law of the universe), grate a couple large tomatoes into a pot. Add a tablespoon of pepper paste and one of tomato paste, mix well, and add about 5 or 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil, add the juice of one lemon, a few crushed cloves of garlic, a few teaspoons of dry mint, salt and pepper, a healthy dollop of pomegranate molasses, and if needed, a bit of sugar (as in one cube) to balance the acid. Let boil for 5 minutes or so, then add a layer of köfte. When they rise to the surface, they're done. Remove them onto a serving plate, then add the rest to the sauce and boil them the same way.

This is actually a "lazy" way to do another dish known as Anali Kizli ("with mothers and daughters"). The authentic way is to make the stuffed köfte just a little larger than a shooter marble. The "daughters" are smaller with no filling, just the extra dough rolled into balls the size of a marble. But as that takes hours, I make mine big.

There are variations of içli köfte all over eastern Turkey. Some serve them deep fried, others boil them and serve them topped simply with butter and red flake pepper. In SE Turkey they sometimes make them flatter  by opening a ball of dough into a wider cup, then sealing the edges. These are dipped into beaten egg and fried, ensuring that you'll be digesting them for at least two days.

But nothing screams "Adana" (not to mention "yummmm") like a tart hot tomato sauce with mint, so if you have a little patience and are willing to slide a bit on your cholesterol-free diet, give these a try!