Lamb Kofta with Tomato Sauce

The well-meaning but somewhat dappy SO managed to buy 1kg of lamb mince when I'd asked for diced lamb -- I suppose it was just extremely well-diced. So I had to think of a way of using a huge amount of lamb mince, and I didn't really feel like mousakka or shepherd's pie. So for the first time, I made kofta! I had a few jars of homemade passata that a friend had given me so used one as a base for the tomato sauce, but you could easily use a tin of chopped tomatoes and cook it for longer. Loosely following this recipe, we didn't fry the onions first, and the final result had a distinctly raw-onion-y flavour. So I recommend frying them first, if only for a minute or two, just to get rid of that rawness.  I served this with aloo gobi and plain basmati rice.

Ingredients

• 1 onion (white or red)
• a large bunch of parsley
• a slice of day-old bread
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
• 500g lamb mince
• 75g plain flour
• 1 egg, lightly whisked
• a tin of chopped tomatoes or a jar of passata
• 3 tbsp curry powder

Finely chop or zap the onion in a blender and fry for a few minutes, until the rawness has gone and the onions turn sweet. Meanwhile, blitz the parsley, bread, garlic and spices in a blender and dump into a mixing bowl. Fold in the cooked onions and lamb mince and blend well. Stir in the plain flour and then the egg. Bring the mixture together and form into large-egg-sized meatballs.

Fry in olive oil for a few minutes on each side, until browned. Meanwhile, cook the tomatoes with the curry powder in a large saucepan, seasoning to taste. As each kofta browns, drop it into the tomato sauce. Simmer for 20 minutes or so, until the kofta are done to taste and the sauce is thickened.