make | middle eastern: chicken koftas with colourful coleslaw

This week, we've created a yummy version of a Middle Eastern favourite - koftas!  They are usually made with lamb, but to cut out some saturated fat, and also make ours a little cheaper, we used chicken instead!  Trust us - they still taste really good!  Turkey breast would work just as well too.  

If you don't like spice, then you can make your koftas without the chilli and only use one teaspoon of garam masala.  In the coleslaw, you can then leave out the cooling mint.

We served our koftas with the crunchy coleslaw, salad and a hot baked potato, but they would also taste really good stuffed in a pitta bread.

Enjoy today!!
- rosinaviolets    x

Chicken Koftas with Colourful Coleslaw

For four people:

For the Chicken Koftas

4 skewers

2 cloves of roughly chopped garlic

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

2cm piece root ginger, roughly chopped (we had some chopped frozen ginger to hand!)

2 teaspoons garam masala

400g chicken breast

For the Coleslaw

200g coleslaw mix (chopped red cabbage, carrot etc)

150g natural yoghurt

Half a cucumber, halved, deseeded and sliced

Bunch of fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped (optional)

For the Baked Potatoes

4 baking potatoes 

A tiny bit of olive oil 

Maldon sea salt

• Zap your baking potatoes in the microwave (after piercing them all over with a fork) for 10 minutes on full power.  Then transfer them to a baking sheet (watch - they'll be hot!) and rub them with a tiny bit of olive oil and give them a sprinkling of sea salt.  Put them in the oven at 200 degrees centigrade for 45 minutes.  

• Place the garlic, ginger and chilli in a food processor and whizz it up until it's really finely chopped.  Then add in the chicken and garam masala and whizz again until finely minced.  

• Tip: Make sure you wash your food processor really well after you've finished mincing the raw chicken.  Wash your hands too!

• Wet your hands a little, and then shape the chicken mixture into twelve ovals.  Thread them onto your skewers.  

• Cook the skewers under the grill for about 10 minutes, turning until nicely browned all over, and completely cooked all the way through.  

• Stir together the coleslaw mix, cucumber, yoghurt and mint.  

• Serve everything together with a big mixed salad.