Persian style grilled spiced lamb and beef kotlet kubideh burgers on mini pitas with an easily made from scratch spiced saffron ketchup.

Kotlet Kubideh Burgers

By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

This post is part of a kick-butt burger grill giveaway hosted by GirlCarnivore but the burger epicness is all my own.

It’s burger month and that means every blogger on earth will  be  posting a burger recipe or three. I mean, really. How many ways can you think of to make a burger? *laughs* My answer to that is…how much  time do  you have? I could talk burgers all night, and well into next week.

I  decided to do two burgers for this event and giveaway. There will be another burger towards the end of the month where I managed to squeeze it in. But first, I have the kotlet kubideh burger for you. And I can hear you all  saying (under your breath)…the kotlet whaaaaaah?

Well, it’s a Persian thing. I first had something like this with my friend Said Shamsai and his sister Soroor when we were riding across the country to deliver a car from Chicago to L.A. His sister had packed lots of good eats, and we picnicked somewhere at a roadside picnic table in Kansas. There were lots of things to eat but the thing I remember about that meal was the kotlet kubideh- which we had cold with yogurt on flat bread with herbs.  They were like little white castles without the buns- but they did not taste like that.

In Persian, kotlet means a cutlet,  or in this case, a patty. Kubideh means “made with ground meat” and you can make these with all sorts of meat: beef, lamb, chicken, pork….no, wait a minute, they don’t eat pork! But I do so I can sneak around and eat that when no one is looking. Said used to sneak bacon too. I was such a bad influence.

I don’t think Soroor’s were grilled, and they may have been all beef, but I love lamb so helped myself to throwing that in. You know. I do stuff like that. Rules? What are those? I had also been reading about this thing they have in the middle east which is Persian ketchup. I would have loved to have gotten my little fingers around a bottle of that so I could deconstruct it but since I couldn’t, I just had to imagine what it would have been.

I mean, I wasn’t going to put a tzatziki on this (even though it tastes remarkably similar to a gyro)…(and I make a fantastic tzatziki, especially if I do it with homemade yogurt). Over there, they slather the Persian ketchup on pizza of  all things. But being the rude American, I decided to put it on a burger where it belongs. Ha! Burgers are an American thing, you know.

Usually, kotlet kubideh has some cooked riced potato in it as well, but being lazy, I grabbed the package of instant potato flakes I keep for oddball things like making potato bread. I don’t know. It’s kind of a funky ingredient but I like it. And the best part is that it is dry, so it is not going to loosen my burger meat to any degree.

I hate that. You know- burgers falling apart on the grill, feeding the fire demon Calcifer.  But these hold together nicely. I also gobbled them down nicely. But that’s why I have left the recipe with you here. It’s like a roadmap to treasure.  Follow it…to the darkside. We have chocolate…and char-grilled burgers.

Burger Blogginess

Just look at all the Burger Bloggers who will be posting this month, many more than once!

1 winner will be drawn for every week of burger month!

All winners will be entered to win a Weber Spirit II E-310 gas grill!

Grand prize grill  winner will be announced June 4th

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Kotlet Kubideh Burgers

• Servings: 4-6
• Time: 2hr 30mins
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Spiced Saffron Ketchup  Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed saffron threads
• 1/2 teaspoon ground  cinnamon
• 1  teaspoon sumac spice
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon  salt
• 6 tablespoons honey

Method:

1. Stir together ingredients for ketchup  in a saucepan, and simmer over low heat, stirring frequently, until thick and reduced to half cup.
2. Cool  before serving.

Burger Ingredients:

• 4 ounces onion
• 8 ounces ground lamb
• 8 ounces ground beef
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons sumac seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup instant potato flakes

Method:

1. Pulse onion in a food processor until finely chopped. Place minced onion in a potato ricer to squeeze out as much liquid as you can, or you could try pressing it in a sieve until it is fairly dry.
2. Combine onion with other ingredients, mixing well, and forming into 3-4 burger patties.
3. Cook burgers to desired doneness on a charcoal grill (or can be done in a skillet, but—no chargrilled flavor that way).

Other Ingredients:

• 3-4 small 4-inch pita bread, split open
• 1 cucumber, very thinly sliced (I used a mandolin)
• 1 large tomato, sliced
• 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

Method:

1. Assemble burgers on split toasted pita with cucumber, tomato, onion, and spiced saffron ketchup.

From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com

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