Lamb Kofte

In the spirit (kind of) of Gordon Ramsay's Cook Along, here's a recipe for something tasty and relatively straight forward - lamb kofte.

Ingredients:
minced lamb (allow 100g per person)
finely chopped sweet/mild onion
finely chopped crushed garlic, 1 clove per 200g lamb
finely chopped birds eye chilli (1 per 100g lamb)
paprika (smoked variety if you have it)
juice of 1 lemon
ground almond powder (20g per 100g lamb)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Technique:
If you're fortunate enough to have a decent food processor, you can save on chopping your onion, garlic and chilli into such small sizes, otherwise, get a sharp knife and get chopping!
Put a medium-sized frying pan on the heat, add 2 tblsp veg oil and throw in the chopped ingredients. Allow the pan to get hot enough to GENTLY fry the contents, however not so hot that you start to colour the onion - we're aiming to sweat everything and soften it all.

Once the onion etc is nicely softened, add the paprika and some ground pepper, take off the heat and stir it all together. Since this all needs to cool before being added to the raw minced lamb, I usually spoon the onion, garlic, chilli etc onto a cold plate to get it to cool quickly.

Separately, if you have that food processor, throw the lamb into it along with the now-cooled onion etc and your ground almond powder. If you're not using a food processor, just put it all in a large mixing bowl.
Either with the food processor, or by hand with a fork, mix everything together until the onion mix is well distributed throughout the lamb.

The combined mix should be fairly dry and sticky. Add more ground almond if your mix is a bit loose.

Now to shape the mix into separate patties ready for frying or grilling. Get a flat tray lightly oiled, putting a little of the oil on your hands. To form each patty, take roughly a snooker ball sized chunk of the lamb mix in your hand and 'roll and squeeze' it together, gradually forming it into a ball, then flatten the ball with the palms of your hands - this last bit is actually easier by placing the ball on the oiled try, then using one hand to flatten it into the tray. Aim to keep the thickness at at least 1/2 inch though. Prepare as many patties as you have mix for.

To fry: Place a large non-stick frying pan on the heat, add 3 tblsp veg oil and allow the pan to get hot but not smoking hot. Place the patties one by one into the pan, taking care not to drop them in else the hot oil will probably spit back.

To grill: Allow your grill to reach at least 210C before placing the tray of patties underneath.

In both instances, you want the patties to acquire a nice dark brown colouration, the same way a beef burger should look. To ensure the lamb is sufficiently cooked through, I would recommend at minimum 4 mins on each side, though this will vary with thickness of patty and heat applied.

To serve: drizzle the lemon juice over the patties. They go great with shredded lettuce and onion, mint and coriander yogurt, sweet chilli sauce and traditional pita breads.