Kofta Masreya
Minced beef and lamb on skewers with onion, parsley and a lot of black pepper, grilled hard over coals or under a very hot grill. Charcoal helps; heat matters more.
Photograph credit: Egyptian kofta by Mkevy · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Kofta Masreya, Step by Step
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Squeeze the grated onion in a cloth until it stops giving water. This step decides whether the kofta holds.
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Combine everything in a bowl and knead hard for 3 minutes, until the mixture turns tacky and clings to your hands and the sides of the bowl.
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Divide into 12 and mould each around a flat metal skewer into a sausage about 15 cm long, pressing firmly.
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Chill the skewers for 30 minutes to firm them.
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Heat a grill or coals until fiercely hot.
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Grill 10 to 12 minutes, turning every 3 minutes, until well charred outside and just cooked through.
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Rest 3 minutes, then slide off the skewers into warm bread with tahina and lemon.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Small Things That Help
- Knead until it goes tacky. That is the only thing holding it together.
- Squeeze the onion completely dry.
- Flat skewers, not round ones — round ones let the meat spin.
Changing the Recipe
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Serving Suggestions
- Egyptian tahina
- Salata baladi
- Torshi
Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Egyptian Rice with Vermicelli, Eish Merahrah, Roz Mermah.
Leftovers and Storage
Raw, shaped skewers keep refrigerated for a day and freeze for 2 months. Cooked, 3 days.
Kofta Masreya FAQ: Common Questions
How long does Kofta Masreya take to make?
20 minutes of preparation and 25 minutes of cooking, plus 30 minutes of chilling, so allow 1 hour 15 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 6.
Kofta Masreya Nutrition Facts
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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