İzmir Köfte

Turkish meatballs baked with potato and tomato, held together by yenibahar

Origin: İzmir, Turkey

From the journey of Allspice.

Turkey has a great many köfte and this is the one from İzmir, baked in a tray with potatoes and peppers under a thin tomato sauce until everything has taken up everything else. The spice that makes it is yenibahar, which means new spice, and the name is the best piece of evidence in any language for how recently allspice reached the Old World. Ottoman cooking had known cinnamon, cumin, and pepper for centuries; a berry that arrived from the Americas after 1492 was simply the new one, and the name stuck. What the Ottoman kitchen then did was make it structural. Allspice is the defining seasoning of the whole köfte and dolma repertoire, always alongside cumin and often with cinnamon, and the pairing of allspice with cinnamon in savoury minced meat is the Ottoman signature that travelled outward to Greece, the Balkans, and the Levant. Take it out of an İzmir köfte and you have a competent meatball that no Turkish cook would recognise. The technique worth taking away is the bread. Stale bread soaked in water and squeezed dry goes into the mince in place of breadcrumbs, which gives a far softer, more open köfte than the dense fried kind. Turkish cooks knead the mixture hard and at length, which is the opposite of the usual advice for meatballs and is what gives them their characteristic springy bite. It is a home dish rather than a restaurant one, cooked in a single tray and brought to the table in it.

Ingredients

Köfte

500 g minced beef or a mix of beef and lamb
2 slices stale white bread, crusts removed, soaked in water and squeezed dry
1 whole onion, grated and squeezed of its juice
2 cloves garlic, finely grated
1 whole egg
2 tsp ground allspice (yenibahar)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

Cooking

4 tbsp neutral oil, for frying

Tray

600 g potatoes, peeled and cut into thick wedges
4 whole long green peppers (sivri biber), or 2 bell peppers
3 whole tomatoes, thickly sliced

Sauce

2 tbsp tomato purée
1 tsp ground allspice
400 ml hot water or light stock
1 tsp salt

Method

Soak the bread in water for a minute, squeeze it out hard, and crumble it into the mince with the grated onion, garlic, egg, allspice, cumin, salt, pepper, and parsley.
Knead the mixture hard with your hands for four or five minutes, until it becomes noticeably smooth and tacky.
Rest the mixture, covered, in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Shape into oval köfte about 6 cm long and fry in 2 tbsp of the oil over a medium-high heat, turning, until browned all over but not cooked through.
Fry the potato wedges in the remaining oil until golden at the edges, then the peppers briefly until blistered.
Arrange the köfte, potatoes, and peppers in a single layer in a baking tray and lay the tomato slices over the top.
Whisk the tomato purée, the second teaspoon of allspice, and the salt into the hot water and pour it around, not over, the tray.
Bake at 190°C for 35 to 40 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed.
Rest for five minutes and serve from the tray with bread and yoghurt.

Notes

Three teaspoons of allspice across the dish is correct. It is the flavour, not a background note, and Turkish cooks would use more rather than less. Stale bread, squeezed, gives a much softer köfte than dried breadcrumbs. It is worth the small trouble. Sivri biber, the long thin Turkish green pepper, is mild and aromatic. Any long green pepper works; bell peppers are sweeter and coarser. It reheats well and is arguably better the next day. Serve with plain rice or bread, yoghurt, and a çoban salatası.

The Gastrographer

Name: İzmir Köfte
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 25 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Turkey
Ingredients: 500 g minced beef or a mix of beef and lamb; 2 slices stale white bread, crusts removed, soaked in water and squeezed dry; 1 whole onion, grated and squeezed of its juice; 2 cloves garlic, finely grated; 1 whole egg; 2 tsp ground allspice (yenibahar); 1 tsp ground cumin; 1 tsp salt; 0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper; 3 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped; 4 tbsp neutral oil, for frying; 600 g potatoes, peeled and cut into thick wedges; 4 whole long green peppers (sivri biber), or 2 bell peppers; 3 whole tomatoes, thickly sliced; 2 tbsp tomato purée; 1 tsp ground allspice; 400 ml hot water or light stock; 1 tsp salt

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control