Koofteh berenji - Persian meatballs

Number 46 in the 80 meatballs from around the world are Koofteh berenji - as made here by Bunny Banyai. I made them last night for the family - we were welcoming back the European travellers - and of course I forgot to take photographs of mine. I was just glad to get it all ready for people to dive in, after working most of the day in the kitchen, so I forgot. I mostly enjoyed the day in the kitchen by the way.

However, I was mildly disappointed with them, even though everyone seemed to tuck in, with some even taking home containers of the leftovers.

There were a lot of leftovers. And here I might have a small moan. There are 11 of us when the whole family gathers, although at the last minute we were down to 9 because of the youngest grandchild having a tummy upset and so he had to stay at home with mum. However, I was catering for 11 and as the recipe in the book said it was for 4 I tripled the quantities as my family are generally large eaters. Well the males anyway. However, I think double would have been sufficient - maybe even less than that. Or maybe they ate less than they would have had it been the normal spaghetti and meatballs. But then some did go back for seconds, and as I said some took some home. Whatever the reason there were lots and lots of leftovers. Some are now frozen for another time and I am pondering on how to transform the leftovers of the rest. So far I have two ideas - reshape them into patties and then either make them into a kind of hamburger or serve them with a salad or some kind of vegetable. Or stuff them into something - pastry or a vegetable, maybe with some extra spice.

I say extra spice because the only spice that was used in their making was turmeric, which I think is at its best when combined with something else.

Having now looked at several other recipes I recognise that Bunny Banyai's recipe is pretty much standard, even a mild improvement, to my mind.

Origins? None that I can find, other than that it originated in the town of Tabriz, and in a slightly different form is known as Koofteh Tabrizi. The slight difference - which isn't always a difference - the two different names seem to be a bit interchangeable - is the size. All of the recipes say that they are larger than our standard meatbals, although, of course, you can make them any size you like. However, in Tabriz they are indeed large - most generally the size of an orange as shown in Greg Malouf's example from his book Saraban (in the middle below) - no recipe online I'm afraid. Koofteh Tabrizi are also stuffed in the middle with some kind of dried fruit - the most common that I came across were prunes, dried apricots and barberries and nuts - generally walnuts. Occasionally, however the stuffing also includes a boiled egg, or in extreme cases a whole cooked chicken. The version on the left is from I Got it from my Maman, Greg Malouf in the centre and Persian Mama on the right.

Koofteh berenji are smaller - the size of a golfball perhaps. Both types, however, have fundamentally the same ingredients - cooked rice and yellow split peas; ground meat - mostly they mentioned beef, but Bunny Banyai said lamb, and so that is what I went with; masses of herbs - a mix of whatever you have - Bunny said, parsley, coriander, dill and chives so that's what I went with - but lots; that turmeric and some kind of fruit. Bunny said barberries - I did have some but my young grandson had eaten them thinking they were cranberries, so that's what I substituted - suggested by Bunny.

Another note on the quantity. I used 1 1/2 k of meat - I was catering for 11 remember - and that's about what I usually use for my spaghetti and meatballs. However on top of that for these you also have a large amount of cooked rice and also a lot of cooked yellow split peas. So bear that in mind. Spaghetti and meatballs is mostly meat with just a few breadcrumbs, some Parmesan, chopped onion, garlic and parsley. Nothing much else to add bulk.

Some recipes included some onion, and many included some chickpea flour and all included eggs to hold it all together.

The meatballs are not fried, but placed into a tomato sauce - well a broth really. Most of the recipes made this with some sautéed onion plus garlic and tomato paste, maybe some saffron, turmeric and then just water. Bunny, however, went for passata and some tinned tomatoes, which I think probably gave it more 'oomph' if you like. But still not very rich to my mind. Traditionally you place the meatballs in a bowl of the broth to serve with bread and yet more herbs. I forgot the herbs, and most of my sauce had been absorbed in the cooking. But then I had not used as much water as was suggested, because I didn't want a lot of watery broth, and later I found this from the Persian Mama website:

"The koofteh has to cook in very little sauce otherwise it will fall apart.  When the koofteh is ready the sauce is reduced to only about a cup or so."

I have to say that mine did not really fall apart - well possibly a few did, and getting them out of the pan intact was tricky, with the remains, being more like one solid mass than separate balls. Hence the idea of reshaping them into breadcrumbed patties or stuffing them in something. Moslty though, if you didn't stir them around too much they remained in the shape of balls.

I'll conclude with a few examples - the first from a group of lesser-known food blogs - all of them Persian based. Family spice whose author made hers with raisins; My Persian Kitchen which were very similar to Bunny Banyai's; Aliya's Vibrant Life which had dried apricots in the sauce - and in fact quite a few added fruit to the sauce as well as in the balls themselves - particularly prunes; and Turmeric and saffron which were stuffed with walnuts and prunes

Then there were three outsiders, worth mentioning really, just for who they are - and, as an aside I could find nothing from Claudia Roden - plus one from one of my cookbooks - Yasmin Khan's Saffron Tales, which alas is not online: Sarah Hobbs/Taste - Sarah Hobbs' recipes often appear in the Coles Magazine, indeed she is their Food Director, which is why I am including it here as it demonstrates how this particular recipe has filtered into the everyday cooking consciousness - she uses currants and walnuts; Kufteh - Andy Baraghani in The Guardian - a British chef, and Noor Murad - the detailed recipe is not online as yet, but it is promised as coming to The Guardian.

And as I look back at all of those recipes, they are all comparatively very similar, which is unusual in the twenty first century.

Will I make them again? No I don't think so - interesting but not memorable really. Which makes me think I must have done something wrong, because of all those Iranian cooks speak about them with much love and admiration. If my leftover experiments turn out to be interesting, even better, I'll let you know. And I hope it doesn't put me off trying something else from the meatball book.

YEARS GONE BY

February 2

2025 - Nothing

2024 - No date syrup - so ...

2023 - Nothing

2022 - On groundhogs, angels and the number 2

2021 - Missing

2020 - Nothing

2019 - Nothing

2018 - Looking up, looking down

2017 - Sandwiches for school