-
1
Put the ground meat and onion in a bowl.
-
2
Add salt and pepper, mix well, and work with your hand to a soft paste.
-
3
Roll into walnut-sized balls and fry briefly in shallow oil, in batches, turning them so that they are brown all over but still pink inside.
-
4
Drain on paper towels.
-
5
Wash the fresh spinach leaves thoroughly, and remove stems only if they are thick.
-
6
Put them in a large pan with the butter, and no extra water, over low heat for a minute or so with the lid on, until the leaves crumple into a soft mass.
-
7
(If using frozen spinach, defrost it and heat it in the pan with the butter until it is soft.)
-
8
Cut up the spinach very roughly with a pointed knife in the pan, add the drained chickpeas, season with salt and pepper, and stir well.
-
9
Put in the meatballs, stir, and cook with the lid on.
-
10
In Egypt it was usual to cook a further 1/2 hour, adding a little water, until the meatballs were very soft.
-
11
I like the meat to be still a little pink inside, so I cook for 5 minutes only.
-
12
The particular refinement of this dish comes from a fried mixture called takleya added in at the end.
-
13
Fry the garlic in 2 tablespoons oil with the coriander until the mixture smells sweet.
-
14
Stir this in at the end of the cooking.
-
15
Serve with rice.
-
16
A Turkish way of eating this is smothered in yogurt mixed with crushed garlic and a little salt, pepper, and dried crushed mint.
-
17
The whole is decorated with a sprinkling of scarlet paprika.
-
18
In this case, omit the takleya at the end.
-
19
A variation from Iran is khoresh sak, a spinach-and-orange sauce served with rice.
-
20
The juice of 1 lemon and 2 oranges is mixed with 1 tablespoon flour and cooked with the meat and spinach for 20 minutes.
-
21
In this case, add only crushed garlic fried in butter, without coriander, at the end.
