Easy Recipe of Lamb Kofta Curry

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This Pakistani Lamb Kofta Curry is simply delicious with naan, roti, pitta bread, or flatbread. But it’s also tasty with rice. If you’re feeling adventurous, try this meatball curry with spaghetti; you’ll get a spicier, more exciting pasta dish.

Lamb Kofta Curry 

Lamb kofta curry is for those who love meatballs and curries combined. The succulent meatballs taste divine in a well-balanced spicy curry sauce. 

Kofta or kofte is a dish made of ground meat, such as chicken, lamb, or beef. 

Although it’s not quite clear where this food originated, I personally think it came from the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. It was brought by the traders to the Mediterranean, the Indian sub-continent, and beyond.

Hence, kofta is found in many cuisines, such as Persian, Turkish, Arabian, Indian, and Pakistani. 

As the name says, this lamb kofta curry recipe I’m sharing here involves minced lamb cooked in curry sauce. It is rooted in Pakistani recipes. 

This dish is also known as kofta salan in Urdu, meaning “meatball curry”. 

Just like any curry, this lamb meatball curry is delicious with any type of flatbread, such as chapati, naan, or pitta. 

And if you make it with more runny gravy, this dish is ideal to serve with Basmati rice or any rice dish. Chicken biryani or chicken pilau rice are a few options to choose from. 

Kofta Shapes

As mentioned above, kofta is made with minced meat. But its shape can be a cylinder or a small ball. 

Mediterranean kofte, like Turkish or Persian, usually has a cylindrical shape, and some are wrapped around a skewer. And the koftas from the Indian subcontinent, such as Indian, Pakistani, and Bengali, are shaped into small balls. 

So, in this recipe, we shape the meat into round balls. 

Ingredients You Need

• Ground lamb meat
• Ground spices, i.e., cumin, coriander seed, garlic powder, ginger powder, black pepper, turmeric, and cayenne pepper powder.
• Fresh spices, i.e., ginger root, garlic.
• Brown onion
• Cooking oil
• Tinned tomatoes
• All-purpose flour

How to Make Lamb Kofta Curry

Basically, you make two things for this dish: the meatballs and the curry sauce. 

Both use their own spices and herbs, so when combined, they are full of aromatic flavor.

For the kofta, you just mix the minced lamb meat with finely chopped onion, all the spices, salt, and flour. Mix and knead thoroughly to achieve a fairly smooth, textured minced meat. 

If you like, you can use a food processor to mix. But make sure you don’t do it for too long. A few blitzes to process are more than enough. 

For the sauce, first fry the chopped onion. Then add the ginger and garlic, followed by the spices. 

Once you smell the spices, you add the chopped tomatoes. You can use fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes. Both work fine. 

Then continue cooking, occasionally mashing the tomatoes, until you have a nice, smooth, thick sauce. 

When your sauce is ready, you can add the meatballs and stir carefully. Leave it to cook until the meatballs are thoroughly cooked. 

Top Tips to Make Delicious Lamb Kofta

• Chop the onion for the meat as finely as possible. You can use a food processor to make it easy. 
• Make sure you mix the ground meat well and thoroughly. And if possible, leave the meat for at least half an hour before shaping it into balls. This will help the flavor to develop well in the meat.
• Mash the tomatoes well until you get a smooth sauce. You can also use a hand blender to blitz the sauce. 
• Cook the masala until it’s smooth, and the oil separates from the spices.
• Rub a little oil on your hand palm before shaping the meatballs to make things easier.

Storage and Reheating

This meatball curry keeps well in the refrigerator for up to a week providing you store it in a tight-lidded food container. If you like, you can always freeze the curry for up to 6 weeks.

You can reheat the curry in a microwave or in a small pan over the stove. Once you thaw your frozen kofta curry, you must eat it within 3 days.

This lamb kofta curry is also ideal for meal planning. So you can cook it in bulk, let it cool to room temperature, then store it in individual food containers.

Lamb Kofta Curry

4.45 from 20 votes

Lamb Kofta Curry is simply delicious to have with naan bread, roti/ chapati, pitta bread or flatbread. It's tasty to eat it with rice too. And you feel adventurous, you can enjoy this meatballs curry with spaghetti. Yumm.

BY: Devy Dar

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Prep : 15 minutes mins

Cook : 50 minutes mins

Total : 1 hour hr 5 minutes mins

Servings: 6

Equipment

• Chopping board
• Kitchen knife
• Mixing bowls.
• Cooking pan with lid.
• Wooden spoon

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Ingredients

 

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For the kofta meatballs:

• 1.3 pounds lamb mince.
• 2 small-sized onions finely chopped.
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder.
• ½ teaspoon ginger powder.
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin.
• ½ teaspoon ground coriander.
• ½ teaspoon paprika powder or chilli powder see the note.
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper.
• ¾ teaspoon salt.
• 2 tablespoons plain flour/ all-purpose flour.

For the curry sauce:

• 2 small-sized onions chopped.
• ½ teaspoon whole cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin.
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander.
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper.
• 1 teaspoon paprika powder or chilli powder see the note.
• ½ teaspoon turmeric powder.
• ½ teaspoon salt see the note.
• ½ cup tinned tomatoes.
• 1 cup of water.
• ¼ cup of oil.
• ½ inch ginger minced.
• 4 garlic cloves minced.

Instructions

• Mix all the ingredients for the meatballs in a bowl until all blends nicely. And shape the meat into small balls. Set aside.
• In a cooking pan, fry the onions. When they become translucent, sprinkle the whole cumin and let it cook further until the onions turn golden brown.
• Then put all other spices, ginger and garlic in the onions. Give it a stir and leave it to fry until it releases aroma. 
• Add the tomatoes in and stir well. Put ½ cup of water and cook the spice mixture until it gets thickened. Keep checking and mixing every now and again. Try to mash the tomatoes so that you get a smooth sauce.
• As the curry sauce is cooking, add in the rest of the water little by little. 
• When you have a not-too-thick and smooth sauce with oil separate from the edges, put the meatballs in, give them a stir until all the kofta is covered with the sauce and let them cook. You can put the lid on and cook at low heat.
• It takes about 20 minutes for the meatballs to thoroughly cook. And you can see the oil separates from the edges.

Notes

• Use paprika powder if you want a very mild curry flavor and you have a little one to feed. Or, you can mix the paprika powder and chili powder if you want a little bit hotter than mild. And of course, you can always use chili powder ONLY, or use more than what the recipe calls for if you prefer. 
• Add more or less salt to taste. Every type of salt gives a different intensity of saltiness. I use Celtic salt in most of my recipes, including this lamb kofta curry. Sometimes I also use pink Himalayan salt. 

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 418kcal | Carbohydrates: 13g | Protein: 18g | Fat: 33g | Saturated Fat: 11g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 16g | Trans Fat: 0.04g | Cholesterol: 72mg | Sodium: 577mg | Potassium: 448mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 303IU | Vitamin C: 8mg | Calcium: 60mg | Iron: 3mg

Devy Dar

Devy founded So Yummy Recipes and Drizzling Flavor to share her love of food after exploring various cultures and cuisines for more than two decades. Her mission is to help others easily recreate traditional and non-traditional food with readily available ingredients. Her works have been featured in Reader’s Digest, Al Jazeera, MSN, Yahoo, Bon Appétit, and more.