Egyptian Kofta Seasoning

Kofta is minced meat, seasoned, shaped by hand around a skewer and grilled hard over charcoal until the outside chars and the inside stays juicy. It is what a family orders when they eat out, what a street grill sells at midnight, and what half the visitors to Egypt decide is the best thing they ate here. The meat and the fire are simple. The seasoning is the part people cannot reproduce at home.

Cumin and coriander lead, and they lead together - cumin for the earthy, savoury base that says Egypt, coriander for the citrus lift that stops minced meat tasting heavy. Black pepper gives the bite. Sweet paprika is there for colour as much as taste, because kofta that comes off the grill grey looks wrong however it tastes.

Onion and garlic go in as dried powder, which sounds like a compromise and is not. Fresh onion in the mince adds water, and water is the enemy of a kofta that has to hold onto a skewer over a fire. The dried version puts the flavour in without the moisture. Most Egyptian cooks use both: grated fresh onion squeezed dry for sweetness, and the powder underneath it for depth.

Cinnamon and allspice are the two that turn a competent meat seasoning into an Egyptian one. They go in small - a warm note behind the cumin rather than anything you could name as cinnamon - and they are the reason kofta tastes related to mahshi and hawawshi and not to a hamburger. Leave them out and the mixture is fine and anonymous.

There is no salt in this blend, deliberately. Mince needs a real amount of salt, the right amount depends on the fat content and on whether you are serving it with bread and tahina or with rice, and a pre-salted seasoning takes that decision away from you. Nothing is padded with starch, rusk or colouring either.

Here is the method, because kofta is not difficult and the seasoning is most of it. For 500 g of minced beef or lamb, use about two level teaspoons - roughly 8 g - with one onion grated and squeezed dry, a good handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley, and salt to your own taste. Work it with your hands until it feels sticky rather than crumbly; that stickiness is what keeps it on the skewer.

Then rest it. An hour in the fridge, covered, lets the spice hydrate and the mince firm up, and it is the step most home cooks skip. Shape it into fingers around flat metal skewers or into ovals if you are using a pan, and cook it hot and fast - charcoal if you have it, a ridged pan or a hot grill if you do not. Around twelve minutes, turned once or twice.

Minced-meat seasoning of this kind has a long history of traditional use across Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean, and that is offered here as a description of that history rather than as a health claim, and it is not medical advice. Beyond kofta it works in hawawshi, in meatballs in tomato sauce, in a shepherd's pie that wants to taste of somewhere, and in lentil or aubergine dishes with no meat in them at all.