A wonderfully unique and incredibly delicious dish from Turkish cuisine! In Turkish, "kürdan kebab" means a meatball on a toothpick. There is no single universal recipe for this dish — every cook makes it their own way. You can use different types of meat and different spices for the ground meat, and the result will be a slightly different flavor every time. I used a blend of beef and pork, and added a bread roll soaked in milk along with onion to keep the meatballs tender and juicy — but feel free to make the ground meat however you like, even with rice added. These kürdan kebabs turned out absolutely delicious — incredibly juicy, tender, and appetizing. My whole family loved them, and I hope you will too!
Ingredients:
- 300 g ground meat (I used half veal, half pork)
- 30 g bread
- 50 ml milk
- 50 g onion
- half a bunch of parsley
- salt, pepper
- 2–4 eggplant
- 2–3 tomatoes (or small cherry tomatoes)
- vegetable oil for frying
- Sauce:
- 200–300 ml water
- 1–2 tbsp tomato paste
- salt, pepper
- spices to taste (I used 1/3 tsp each of basil, oregano, and dried garlic)
How to cook kürdan kebab
Add the soaked bread, finely chopped parsley, and finely chopped onion to the ground meat. It's very important to chop the onion as finely as possible so it doesn't stay raw — it will cook through properly and add juiciness to the kebabs (if you have trouble chopping it finely enough, you can use a food processor). Season with salt and pepper.
Knead the ground meat mixture very thoroughly and then beat it well. Beating means lifting the meat and throwing it back down into the bowl — well-beaten ground meat holds its shape perfectly without adding eggs, and stays juicy after cooking.
Prepare the eggplant. The quantity of eggplant is approximate — it all depends on their size and how thinly you can slice them. I had two very large eggplants; longer ones work best. Slice the eggplant into thin rounds.
If you're worried your eggplant might be bitter, salt the slices, let them sit for 20–30 minutes, then drain off the liquid that has collected. However, modern eggplant is no longer bitter, so this step isn't really necessary — I simply salted mine and went straight to frying.
Heat a small amount of vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the eggplant slices and fry until golden on the bottom.
Flip the slices over. Eggplant absorbs a lot of oil when frying, so I start with just a small amount of oil in the pan and add a little more only when the pan looks completely dry.
Transfer the fried eggplant slices to a plate lined with paper towels. I ended up with 16 usable slices.
Divide the ground meat into half as many portions as you have slices (in my case, 8 portions). Lay two eggplant slices in a cross pattern and place a ball of ground meat in the center.
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