Nargisi kofte

This recipe is a result of my passion for fusion cuisine. I am highly impressed and inspired by the idea of fusion cooking. It is nothing but a marriage of different cultures that gives you a single eating experience where imagination is the limit! 

The traditional nargisi kofta is usually stuffed with boiled eggs or onion chutney (chopped onions and green chillies mixed with yoghurt). I didn't like biting into a kofta and eating the boiled egg. It was like eating two different things in one. Anything stuffed I feel should give a unique combined taste. So I mixed mint chutney with the hard boiled yolks and stuffed the mixture in the boiled egg whites before enclosing them with the kofta dough. They were basically devilled eggs with the mint chutney egg yolk filling, stuffed inside the koftas - something different, yet a marriage of two different cultures - the East and the West! I also tried mixing mashed egg yolks with cheddar cheese and it tasted really good with the melted cheese inside. Well, you can go on trying different combinations and the sky is the limit!

          Here's the recipe.                                                                      

                                            
                                                            











Ingredients:        
Lamb or Beef        - 1/2 kg
Channa dal            - 1/2 cup
Green chillies        - 4- 6 small
Cloves                   - 6
Green Cardamom-  6
Onion small             1
Garlic  cloves        - 4 medium
Turmeric                - 1/2 a tspn
Red chilly powder - 1/4 tspn
Salt to taste
Hard boiled eggs  - 4
Mint chutney - 2 tblspns
Cheddar cheese (grated) - 1/2 cup
                                            
Method:
1. Clean and wash the meat (lamb or beef), cut into cubes or chunks.
2. Clean and wash the channa dal.
3. Take a pot and add the washed dal and the meat cubes and all the other ingredients except the hard boiled eggs.
4. Cook on medium heat with the lid on till you see steam coming out.
5. Open the lid, give it a stir and check to see if the meat has stiffened a bit and is no longer pink.
6. Remove from the stove. Let it cool for a while.
7. Pick out the whole spices (cloves and cardamoms) from it and keep aside.
8. Pick out the meat pieces as well and set aside.
9 Grind the rest of the cooked ingredients in a wet grinder. If the dal is moist with a little water left at the bottom, then do not add any more water. This would be sufficient enough to grind the dal. Otherwise add 2 tblspns of water and grind the dal finely with the green chillies, onion and garlic.
10. Remove the dal mixture and set aside.
11.Now shred the meat pieces in the grinder by pulsing them 2 or 3 times.
12. Grind the cloves and cardamom finely in a dry grinder or use a mortar & pestle to crush them fine.
13. Add the ground dal mixture to the shreded meat in the wet grinder along with some cilantro (1/4 cup) salt and the ground whole spices and pulse till everything is well blended. The kofta dough is now ready. If the dough feels too dry sprinkle a little bit of water or knead it well with wet hands.
14. Take a little kofta dough the size of an egg and roll it into a small ball in the palm of your hand. Make small balls of the same size with the entire kofta dough.
15. Peel the hard boiled eggs, cut into two halves breadthwise and set aside.
16. Pick the hard boiled yolks from the halved eggs, mash them, sprinkle a litle salt & pepper then mix with 2 tblspns of the mint chutney. If you are not using chutney add the grated cheese to the mashed yolks, do not add salt as the cheese is salty enough.
17. Fill the hard boiled egg whites with the mashed yolk & mint chutney filling or cheese filling to make devilled egg halves.

18. Take one kofta dough ball, make a depression in the center, widen it so that it is big enough to hold the devilled egg half.
19. Cover it completely with the kofta dough. Repeat the same process for all of them.

20. Deep fry in hot oil till crispy and golden. Serve hot with ketchup or mint chutney. Enjoy!


Mint Chutney:
Fresh Mint leaves - 1 cup
Cilantro - 1/2 cup
Garlic - 2 cloves
Green chillies - 4 - 6 small ones
Tamarind (seedless) - size of 1/2 a lime
Salt to taste.

Method: Grind all the above ingredients together with a little salt. Your chutney is ready for the stuffing.
For serving the chutney with snacks add a small tomato and a small onion and pulse one or two times after grinding the above ingredients.