Urfa Style Çiğ Köfte with Eggs

Everything about Urfa is peculiar to the city.

Its historical remnants such as “Göbeklitaş”, its architecture like “Harran”, its spices like “isot” and its desserts like “şıllık”…

Even it has its own unique çiğ köfte (tr. raw meatball, pronounced as chee-kohf-teh). As Urfa is the place where it is originated in, another version of çiğ köfte made with the addition of eggs is a popular dish in the city.

Ingredients (for 4-5 people)

• 500 grams of bulgur
• 300350 grams of home-made isot pepper
• 1 onion
• A few cloves of garlic
• 1 tablespoon of homemade tomato paste
• ½ tablespoon of homemade pepper paste
• 45 medium size tomatoes
• 2 bunches of parsley
• Fresh onion
• 6 eggs
• Butter
• Black pepper

Put all the bulgur, isot, garlic, minced one big onion, red pepper paste and tomato paste into the pot and add some black pepper to your taste. Start to knead at a slow pace.

As I just mentioned that the paste you use for the recipe should be home made, it is one of the main ingredients of çiğ köfte so you have to add some into the mixture if not much. If you cannot acquire it from your friends or family members, most certainly that you will find it in the dairy shops which have become ubiquitous in the city centers nowadays. In addition to that, the reason why there is not salt listed in the ingredients is because I don’t favor salt that much and yet there is enough salt in the home-made paste varieties.

Make sure that all the ingredients are evenly blended. We will use the tomatoes to make the mixture juicy enough, instead of water or oil. Peel and squeeze the tomatoes. Add the juice to meld with the mixture. This will help you achieve the right consistency.

Knead for about 45 minutes and add the minced parsley and fresh onion. While the mixture is in kneading process, crack the eggs into a pan with melted butter and fry it until it is cooked close to omelet’s consistency. Put the fried eggs into the mixture with all its frying oil and continue to knead it again to get evenly blended.

As some words don’t mean anything when they are alone, there are also such dishes that won’t give a taste when they are left alone in the dish.

For that matter, çiğ köfte is one of those dishes that wouldn’t appeal to me without its accompaniments lettuce and lemon. Some dill, rocket, radish and mint would be an extra boost to the dish.

I recommend you to put aside the issue of whether a çiğ köfte should be made with or without meat and give this recipe with egg a try.

Bon appétit and enjoy the taste of life…