Indian Lamb Cocktail Koftas (Chhote Kofte): Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking

The other hot hors d'oeuvre for the Great Christmas Party 2010 were a gourmet take on meatballs. I'm sorry but taking lumps of meat on a toothpick and dunking it in barbecue sauce down-grades the class of a party. That may seem snobby, but meatballs have a time and a place, and that was not at my family's party. This recipe was as close to meatballs as I was willing to go, but gourmet and exotic enough to evoke "oohs" and "ahhs" from party attendees. Never once did I refer to them as meatballs when distributing them to guests. "Would you like a lamb kofta?" sounds exponentially more appealing than "Want a meatball?"

"Delicious Cocktail Koftas" - Chhote Kofte - I somehow don't think "delicious" is translated in the recipe title...
For the kofte:
ground lamb
salt
ground cumin
ground coriander
garam masala
cayenne
cilantro
yogurt

For the sauce:
garlic
ginger
water
ground cumin
ground coriander
paprika
cayenne
vegetable oil (or other oil that can take high heat)
cinnamon stick
cardamom pods
whole cloves
onion
tomato
yogurt (I substituted almond breeze here but not in the koftas, to keep the consistency, but figured it didn't matter so much for the sauce since it mostly evaporates and thickens anyway)
salt

This is one of the easiest recipes in the cookbook. There is none of this "Add first spice. 30 seconds later add....30 seconds later add....2 minutes later add...."

For the koftas you simply combine all the ingredients...yeah, that's it. It feels like cheating it's so easy. Shape into 30 balls, dipping your hands in water as necessary.

The sauce takes a bit more work, but is well worth it. The nice thing is you don't have to chop the garlic or ginger as they go straight into the blender or food processor with 4 tbsp of water. Pour out into a bowl, and add the cumin, coriander, paprika and cayenne straight to the garlic/ginger paste.

Then put 1 to 6 tbsp of oil in a frying pan on medium-high heat. The recipe says six, I say two, depends how much skimming you want to do later. Basically you need the oil for the whole spices to release their flavours, but you can achieve this by making a pool of oil on one side of the pan to trick the spices into thinking they're swimming. They only need to be overwhelmed by oil for 3-4 seconds before you add the chopped onions, stirring all the time until brown. The onions won't brown the same with less oil, but trust me, they'll be fine, and you won't mind because of all the other flavours. Fried onions in a biryani are important because they're a subtle flavour that really comes through, but in a tomato-based lamb dish it's overkill.

When the onions are brown add a tablespoon of yogurt (or almond breeze) and stir until it's incorporated into the sauce. Add Add the remaining 3 tbsp of yogurt 1 tbsp at a time.

Add 1 1/4 c. water and salt.

Bring the sauce to a simmer and add the lamb koftas. Cover, leaving the lid a bit ajar, reduce heat to low and cook 25 minutes. You need to stir every now and then make sure there's still liquid in the pan and the meatballs aren't sticking to the pan or to each other.

Remove the lid and turn the heat up to medium-low if the sauce isn't clinging to the meatballs. This is just to evaporate off the excess. There should be a layer of fat at the bottom of the pan. The sauce is to die for, so you can either pour the whole contents of the frying pan into a dish, or lift the meatballs one by one, removing excess fat and whole spices that just don't know when to let go.

Alternately, you could serve these as a main course and leave more of the sauce to soak into basmati rice or soak up with naan.

These are, as the boastful recipe says, delicious. You won't find an easier authentic Indian recipe for lamb, or most anything else. Certainly not one with such a high taste : work ratio. They melt in your mouth, and the hot, sweet and savoury flavours of the cayenne, tomato, and garam masala are present in each luscious bite.