K yufta is a meat dish (in fact, giant meatballs) very common in the Caucasus. The recipe for kyufta is quite old and every nation in the Middle East can boast of its own cooking option.

Today we invite you to cook with us a kyufta in Armenian.

Products

• Beef (pulp) - 1 kg
• Bulb onions - 1 pc.
• Egg - 2 pcs.
• Flour - 50 g
• Cognac - 50 gr
• Salt to taste
• Black and red pepper - to taste
• Milk - 200 ml
• Butter - 80 g (for serving)

Step by step recipe

• Let's prepare products for kyufta in Armenian. Wash the beef pulp under running cold water. Remove the husk from the onion. Milk can be replaced with water (used to soften minced meat). In some versions of kyufta in Armenian, cognac (50 g) is added.

• Let's use a meat grinder and grind the meat. It is very convenient to use a kitchen processor for this. If you have a manual device at hand, then the meat should be twisted 3-4 times.
• Add black and red peppers to the meat and salt.
• Pour the whole portion of milk (or, as stated above, water) into a bowl with minced meat. We'll drive eggs there. Let's add flour. Mix until smooth. The mass is quite viscous.
• Chop the onion finely. Add to the minced meat. Let's mix.
• Divide the resulting meat mass into approximately four parts. We blind big meat balls with wet hands. Bring the water to a boil in a convenient saucepan. With a large spoon, carefully lower a huge meat piece into boiling water. Cooking kyufta in Armenian should be 30 minutes.

Kufta, a recipe for which involves the use of lamb or beef, is a traditional dish of the Middle East and South Asia. It gained the greatest popularity in Armenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan. An interesting fact is that the Turkish kufta has 291 varieties. Armenian kyufta is made from beef. At the same time, in the Arab countries, ishli - the so-called kuftu, is prepared mainly from lamb.

There are important features of the preparation of this dish, without which it is impossible to make a delicious lunch. If you do not follow the technology, the kyufta will simply disintegrate during the cooking process. It should be noted that this dish does not require special skills - even someone who is not familiar with oriental cuisine can cook it.

It takes about two hours to prepare the kyufta, but the result is worth it! It is not for nothing that kyufta is one of the most beloved hot dishes of many peoples - Armenian, Georgian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Iranian.

Kufta is a kind of meatballs that are larger than regular meatballs. Ishli has the shape of a ball, which is prepared exclusively from meat without adding lard. This is what distinguishes kyufta from the usual cutlets, meatballs and meatballs. Many who have tried a properly prepared dish claim that it vaguely resembles a very tasty boiled sausage. Of course, the taste depends on the chosen recipe and type of meat. We recommend that beginners try to make exactly ishli in Armenian, which includes beef.

It should be noted that Armenian kufta is the most traditional dish. In Armenia, not a single solemn event is complete without him.

It is especially often served at weddings. Kufta is considered one of the main hot meat dishes in Armenian cuisine. Of course, sometimes it is made from lamb, but the classic recipe calls for only young beef.

A dish made from beef will taste much more familiar than lamb kyufta. The fact is that lamb has a specific taste and aroma that you need to get used to. Adherents of Slavic cuisine sometimes cannot eat mutton at all. In this sense, using beef is ideal. We guarantee that your guests and loved ones will like this hot dish.

Classic Turkish kufta can be made from lamb or beef. Moreover, there are 291 recipes for this dish. Every Turkish family has its own secrets of cooking ishli, for example, kyufta on skewers, kyufta with potatoes and breaded herbs.

In South Asia, kyufta is a lunch made with rice, vegetables and fruits. The fact is that meat is not a popular product in Bengal due to objective reasons. Asians invented their kufta from familiar products. Interestingly, the dish has spread in some European regions. Among them are Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, Croatia, Romania.

There is a special kind of dish - kyufta-bozbash. It is a pea soup with meatballs. Usually inside the meatball there is a piece of sour fruit - cherry plum or plum. Bozbash is especially widespread in Azerbaijan. This dish is prepared in all regions that have experienced Turkic influence. The soup is served with a variety of plant-based sauces.

Recipe for classic Armenian kyufta

The classic Armenian recipe is uncomplicated and delicious. It is very important to choose and prepare the meat correctly. It is advisable to use beef without blood - in this case, the meat balls will turn out to be dense and fragrant. If possible, choose animal meat that is not slaughtered with an electric current, but with the old method - with a knife.

Choose meat without fat and stringy veins. The hip part is ideal.

So, prepare the following ingredients for Armenian kyufta:

• 1 kilogram of beef;
• 1 large onion
• 2 eggs;
• 2 tablespoons flour;
• 180 g of brandy;
• salt and spices to taste.

Beef with onions must be passed through a meat grinder, and then minced with a blender. The minced meat for the correct meatballs should look like tomato puree. After that, you need to add flour, brandy, salt and spices to taste. Black pepper, coriander, suneli hops, marjoram, red pepper, white mustard, dry garlic, thyme, dried basil, and dried parsley are best suited to the dish.

After the minced meat is ready, you need to pour water into a large saucepan and heat it to such a state that it doesn't hurt to lower your finger (about 40 degrees). After that, you need to take a deep ladle. The deeper it is, the neater the balls will turn out. The ladle should be cooled under running cold water to make it easier to shape the dish. After that, it is necessary with its help to form large balls with a diameter of 7 - 10 cm and lower them into a saucepan with warm water. On average, the meatballs should cook for 50-60 minutes.

By all the rules, it is forbidden to make cuts in the Armenian kuft. But there are situations when you cannot find meat without blood. In this case, we recommend making neat cuts on the balls 10 minutes before ready. Such a secret will help release blood, which can accumulate in the middle of the meatball, if the minced meat was originally mixed with blood. Remember that the finished balls must have the same light shade on the inside and outside, which indicates that the correct cooking technology was followed.

The finished kyufta must be poured abundantly with melted butter, after which it can be served. This dish is ideally combined with vegetable garnish, various tomato sauces, mashed potatoes. It is enjoyed by both adults and children. It is no coincidence that kyufta is one of the main dishes of Armenian cuisine, which is famous for its many incredibly tasty and interesting dishes.

Turkish cooking recipe

For the dish, you need to take the following ingredients:

• 1 kilogram of lamb;
• 1 bunch of parsley;
• 1 bunch of cilantro;
• 4 cloves of garlic;
• 1 large onion
• salt and black pepper to taste.

It is necessary to remove all fat from the lamb, and then pass it into a fine meat grinder. After that, you need to add finely chopped greens, onions, garlic to the minced meat, and then salt and pepper it. Next, you need to take 500 ml of refined vegetable oil and pour it into a deep fryer or saucepan. Next, you need to form large balls from the minced meat and fry them in hot oil until tender. The advantage of this dish is its low fat content.

To prepare the sauce, take the pulp of 1 kilogram of tomatoes, 200 ml of broth, 2 chopped cloves of garlic, chopped 1 onion, 2 teaspoons of powdered sugar, salt, 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, cilantro and spices. Be sure to use seasonings such as black pepper, nutmeg, ginger, white pepper, and cloves. You can use a ready-made mixture of katr-episa.

First, you need to fry the onion until transparent in butter. After that, you need to add the broth, tomato paste and tomato puree and simmer the mixture in a pan for about 15 minutes. At the end, add spices, icing sugar, cilantro. Cool the sauce and serve with the kufta. It is very important to use cilantro greens because this ingredient gives the sauce an unforgettable flavor.

Kyufta is an incredibly tasty dish that is mostly prepared on a meat basis. Mainly used beef and lamb. There are various variations of kyufta: with rice, with vegetables, or as meatballs in a pea soup called bozbash. This kind of lunch is common in the Middle East and South Asia. It should be noted that each nation has changed the recipe for kyufta based on their taste preferences.

Kufta is an ancient dish of Armenian cuisine

Previously, cooking kyufta was a long process: it was necessary to beat the meat on a special stone, with a special hammer, until it became a viscous homogeneous mass.

They served kyufta on pita bread with pickled cucumbers, herbs and ghee.
But now, fortunately, in the modern world, modern technologies allow modern housewives to prepare this dish with less effort and time.

Advice:

• If it is possible to get a steamed beef fillet without blood, then this is the most suitable meat. Meat is sold in stores, which contains a lot of blood and because of this, the kyufta can turn out to be a little loose. But the most important thing is that the meat for the kyufta must be very fresh.

Kufta recipe with photos
	Peel the beef pulp from films and tendons.
	After scrolling through a meat grinder 2-3 times. Put the minced meat in a blender bowl with knives and beat for 4-5 minutes. You can add one tablespoon of water while whisking.
	Pass the onion through a meat grinder.
	Beat the egg.
	Add mashed onion, raw egg, flour + cognac to the minced meat, season with salt, and you can also pepper
	Then beat well for 15 - 20 minutes. The minced meat should change color. It should be noted that the quality of the kyufta depends on the whipping.
	Put water on fire in a wide, deep saucepan, but do not bring to a boil, add salt. After wetting your hands with cold water, shape the minced meat into a ball. You can use a large round ladle to shape the minced meat into a ball, release the hot water and cook for about 25-30 minutes.
	Put the kyufta balls on a dish and pour with melted butter. The kyufta can be cut into slices, into circles and laid out as you like best. For a side dish with kyuft, either just boiled potatoes, or pilaf with dried fruits, or any other side dish will suit.

Caucasian cuisine (including Azerbaijani) is one of my favorites. As I promised earlier, I am posting a recipe for the most delicious Azerbaijani cuisine - Kufta-bozbash (Turkic “kyufta” - meatball, or a meatball, Azeri. Bozba? - “gray head”). This dish is cooked and eaten not only in Azerbaijan - it is found in both Armenian and Georgian cuisine, and if you dig deeper, then, probably, all peoples inhabiting the Caucasus.

And there are many variations too. In different sources, figures from 200 to 290 types of kyufta sound. This soup replaces both the first and the second. In his homeland, it is also interesting to eat it - first they serve broth, and the rest (meatballs, peas, potatoes) are served separately.

Lavash, vegetables (tomatoes and cucumbers), onions and, if in season, a plate with fresh herbs (cilantro, purple basil) are offered separately for this dish. This dish even has seasonal variations - in the summer version, fresh tomatoes are put in it and sprinkled with fresh cilantro, and in winter, tomato paste is added (as an option, without it at all), and instead of fresh cilantro, dried mint. And instead of fresh cherry plum, they take dried.

The dish itself is a thick soup made from mutton bone broth, with meatballs (lamb, rice, onions, cherry plums), chickpeas (also called "chickpeas", "nohut") and potatoes. In Russia, lamb dishes are less popular than beef, pork and poultry because of the smell. Many, having tasted mutton once, then they no longer eat it. It's just that people are out of luck. Lamb, in addition to being able to cook, also needs to be eaten correctly!

It is always served hot and eaten immediately (unless, of course, it is cold meat or other cold snacks), but when it cools down, a not very pleasant smell and a white film of fat appear. Lamb is not prepared in reserve, as we have cabbage soup or borscht - it is prepared with the expectation that it can be eaten at a time, fresh, just cooked. Some dishes, for example, piti (a no less famous Azerbaijani soup, and it is prepared in almost the same way, only instead of kyufta, it contains pieces of meat) are served in portioned clay pots - "pitishnits", in which it was also cooked. My wife is from the Caucasus, and she ate lamb as a child, in the form of a barbecue. I remember a roadside cafe with barely warm, tough and unpleasantly smelling meat on a skewer. Then she assured me for a long time that she did not like this type of meat. And now she eats lamb with great pleasure - thanks to the "kyufta-bozbash" soup :)

I myself tried this soup in his homeland, Azerbaijan. In the city of Nakhichevan.

Here's my take on this dish:
Lamb (shoulder or hind leg) - 400 g,
Water - 2.5 - 3 l,
Fat tail fat - 2 tablespoons,
Rice - 2 tablespoons,
Cherry plum - if you take fresh, then at the rate of 1 piece per one kufta ball,
if you take dried, then at the rate of 3 pieces for one ball-kufta,
Chickpeas - half a glass,
Potatoes - 6-7 pieces, minimum size of a walnut, maximum size of a chicken egg,
Onions - 2-3 large heads,
Imeretian saffron - on the tip of a knife,
Tomatoes - 2-3 pcs,
Cilantro - a handful of chopped greens for each plate
Salt to taste
Ground black pepper - to taste.

This dish has several nuances: it is better to make some preparations in advance - boil the broth on lamb bones (in principle, it is not critical, you can do without it) and soak the chickpeas.

Chickpeas - peas are extremely strong, and you won't be able to cook them just like that, without preliminary soaking! It doesn't fall apart even when boiled. To soak this representative of the legume family, pour the required amount of chickpeas in a suitable container with cold water in the evening and soak it for 8 to 14 hours. By the way, in Azerbaijani cuisine there is a very tasty dish with boiled chickpeas - Toyuq kotleti (chicken cutlets with chickpeas).

So! Lamb bone broth is cooked in advance, chickpeas are also soaked.

We put the pan with lamb bone broth on the stove, load the soaked and swollen chickpeas into the pan.

As it boils, we make the fire less, remove the foam (after all, there is foam even from the peas!) And put the chopped tomatoes into the pan (it’s nice to remove the skin from them, but I was too lazy). Tomatoes will boil down to dust - they need taste and color.

azerbaijani kufta

kyufta Armenian recipe

While the chickpeas are cooking, we have time. We cook rice for our kuft, until half cooked in salted water. Making a saffron dressing - pour a pinch of saffron with boiling water in a glass (if you bought it from traders on the market, do not believe that it is saffron. This is its cheaper replacement - Imeretian saffron (aka marigolds, Tagetes), less odorous and aromatic. But to us this option is suitable.) and cover, say, with a saucer, so that the aroma does not evaporate.

how to cook kyufta

kyufta photo

Finely chop the onion (we need it both for minced meat and for soup) and peel the potatoes. In the original, the potatoes should be small, 4-5 cm in diameter. Aesthetics!

kyufta recipe with photo

ishli kyufta recipe

Let's do minced meat for kyuft. While we were busy peeling vegetables, the rice boiled. We drain, rinse and add it to the lamb, previously chopped (in a blender or meat grinder). There is also ground black pepper, salt and finely chopped onions.

how to cook kyufta

kufta soup

kyufta dish

kyufta azerbaijani recipe

Stir the resulting mixture until smooth. And we sculpt our kyufta out of it. They should be the size of a large chicken egg. Inside each meatballs we walled up either one fresh (pitted) cherry plum (we need wild, sour ones), or three dried ones. I did it with both fresh and dried, naturally fresh tastes better. The acidity is important.

Here is an option with dried cherry plum:

armenian cuisine Kufta

armenian dish kufta

But with fresh:

Here are our kyuftas:

While we enthusiastically stuffed dried cherry plum into the minced meat, the chickpea reached the "required condition." Cook the peas for about an hour - you need it to become soft. To do this, we deftly take a pea out of the pan with a spoon and taste - the finished chickpea should be with a slight crunch. Aha! So, it's time to put potatoes and kyufta in the pot.

Cook for another 10-15 minutes and add finely chopped onion, black pepper to the soup (actually, in the original, peppercorns, but I put coarsely ground - it gives a taste, and you don't need to catch it) and finely chopped fat tail. It is possible without it, but this is already an option for those who do not eat lamb and will cook from beef.

We taste it with salt, add some salt to taste. And the final touch - saffron dressing! Pour it into the soup, let it boil, turn off the heat and cover the saucepan with the soup! ALL!

NOT! Not all! We're setting the table! The hostess takes out the plates, cuts the herbs (the soup poured into a plate is sprinkled with fresh herbs - cilantro before serving), takes out from the refrigerator a sweaty decanter with table wine No. 21. Put two or three kyufta, peas, a couple of potatoes on the plate, fill it with broth and sprinkle with cilantro ... This soup is served with lavash (Bummer! On the way home from work, I didn't get lavash! It's a pity!) We pour ourselves 50 gr. from a misted decanter - after all, Friday night!

Enjoy your meal! Health to you! Best regards, Sergey Zverev.

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The earliest mentions of the kyufta recipe were known from cookbooks in Arabic, even during the Ottoman rule from Turkish cuisine. The word "kyufta" comes from the Persian language. kūfta, or کوفتن, means to grind, or meatballs. The recipe has been adopted by many national cuisines. In Ottoman books, it was suggested to cook kyufta using lamb, smearing the meat with egg yolk with saffron. In Armenia, kyufta is made from beef, served with butter and hot tsitsak pepper. In this recipe, we will talk about the Armenian kuft:

Ingredients:

• Beef 1 kg without fat and tendons
• Onion 2 pieces
• Egg 1 pc
• Flour 2 tbsp. l. flour
• Cognac 50 gr
• 3/4 cup milk or water (very cold)
• Red and black pepper
• Salt to taste
• Ghee or butter (for watering)

How to cook

The original needs to beat the meat, until a homogeneous mass of weak consistency is obtained, but for modern people, it is easier to pass the meat 5-6 times through a meat grinder or grind it in a processor (preferably in the latter).
Grind the meat in the processor at the highest speed until a homogeneous, smooth mass, add cold water (milk) during grinding. Transfer the minced meat to a bowl, add cognac, egg, flour, chopped onion, season with salt and pepper, and knead for 20-25 minutes. You should get a doughy, viscous and slightly liquidish light mince. (which I didn't seem to succeed :))
Place a pot of water on the stove, add salt and bring to a boil.
Divide the minced meat into 4 parts, form each part with wet hands or with the help of a ladle soaked in water 4 balls and carefully place them in boiling water.
Cook for 25-30 minutes, remembering to remove the foam.
Serve the kyufta hot, cut into slices, pour over with melted butter.