Authentic Lebanese BEEF KAFTA

What's the number one thing you grill in the summer? For us, it's surprisingly not burgers, it's kefta. Hey guys, I'm Yumna aka Feel Good Foodie and I'm here to answer all your important questions about kefta. Like first of all, what's kefta and why do we grill it so much? The good news is all you really need to make this recipe is some ground beef, onions, parsley, and a few spices. This is a Lebanese-style kefta that I grew up having and there's so many different variations of this recipe with different spices and ways to make it. It's essentially a Mediterranean meatball recipe that comes out juicy and flavorful and perfect to enjoy all summer. So let's get started because I'm getting hungry. We're gonna start by chopping some parsley and I like to do this in a food processor. So we're gonna start with half a cup of parsley. You want to make sure that the parsley is dry so that when you process it, it doesn't wilt down. So make sure to dry it a day before if possible. All right, that's all we need. So we're gonna take the parsley that we just processed and throw it back onto the plate. Don't worry if there's some of it left over. Next, we're gonna take a small onion and we're just gonna trim off the ends and then you just want to cut them in about half. So just quartering the onion and throwing that in the food processor. We'll process that for just about 30 seconds to break down the onions. And don't worry if you don't have a food processor, you can just chop the onion by hand and chop the parsley by hand as well and then mix everything together. I do like doing it in the food processor because it makes it a little bit easier. So I'm gonna transfer the parsley back into the food processor and you can use flat leaf parsley or curly leaf parsley which is more traditional. And to that, we're gonna add one pound of ground beef. I like to use a lean ground beef that has 10 to 15 percent of fat because we're not adding any eggs to this recipe. Essentially, it's like a meatball recipe and all the fat from it comes from the beef. So we're gonna go ahead and transfer that to the food processor and now it's time to add the spices. So a lot of Middle Eastern stores will carry a kefta spice. There's even a chicken kefta spice and a beef kefta spice. So there's lots of different ones to choose from. If you can't find one like that, it's so easy to throw it together with some common spices. We'll start with two teaspoons of seven spice, half a teaspoon of cumin, half a teaspoon of cinnamon, half a teaspoon of coriander. You can also use caraway and you can add like an eighth of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper if you want or you can just leave it out. Finally, just some salt and pepper. I like to do half a teaspoon of salt and a fourth of a teaspoon of black pepper. Now we're gonna pulse the beef with the parsley, onions, and spices just until combined. You don't want to over mix it because that can create really tough chewy meat after it's cooked. Now let's transfer the mixture from the food processor to a bowl. Now we're going to take the mixture and form it into meatballs. But what's different about kefta versus meatballs is the shape of it is an oblong shape versus a round shape. So just take some of the mixture with your hands and you can first form it into a ball like this and then roll it around to form it into an oblong shape. And if you're grilling these outside you can add them to a wooden skewer. We're just going to use an indoor grill today so it makes things a little bit easier and there's no need for that skewer. And this is what you're looking for. So we're going to continue and this mixture should make about eight keftas. All right we've got a plate full of the kefta, now it's time to cook them. And I'm just going to place them right on the grill pan. While the kefta is cooking we're going to go ahead and make the Lebanese rice that goes perfectly with this. This is vermicelli that we're going to go ahead and cook until nice and browned. After you fry the vermicelli it's time to add the rice. I'm using long grain basmati rice that I rinsed and drained and we want to add half a teaspoon of salt. Now just toast the rice with the vermicelli and add four cups of water for two cups of rice. This is a rice that I make three to four times a month for my family. We all love it so much and it goes so well with so many Lebanese recipes, especially kefta. We're going to cook the rice for 15 minutes and then while that's cooking let's check up on the kefta and it's looking really good. All right it's time to plate it. So you can have this as is by itself with a salad, in a pita, and my favorite way to serve it is actually with Lebanese rice. So this is the rice that we just cooked and I'm just going to take this and put it into a big serving platter. All right and here's the kefta that we just cooked. So I'm just going to go ahead and plate this on top of the rice and this is the way I would serve it for a dinner party if I'm having some people over so that everybody takes a little bit of the rice, a little bit of the kefta, and everyone's a happy camper. We're just going to garnish it with a little bit of parsley. All right and here's the final product of the Lebanese style kefta. This is such a great easy recipe for the summer time. You can also make it all year long if you use an indoor grill pan or you can even bake it in the oven. It comes out juicy, flavorful, and everybody always loves it. All right time to dig in. Look how juicy that kefta looks on the inside and the rice is nice and buttery and simple and it just goes so well together. That came out so good just the way my mom would make it and there's so much to love about this recipe so I hope you guys try it and love it as well. If you try it, DM me, tweet me, Facebook me, or send me a comment on the website and let me know how you like it. And if you love this video, share the love with your friends and family and don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube. See you guys next time!