adapted by Rebecca Rendsburg from The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden
Serves 4-8
1 large onion, chopped
3-4 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 ½ lbs (750g) Ground Lamb or Ground Beef
1 teaspoon ground dried lime (apparently from Indian and Oriental stores – but I have never used this)
¼ teaspoon ground cloves (or more to taste)
¼ teaspoon allspice (or more to taste)
Salt and pepper
3-4 tablespoons tomato paste
7 oz (200g) dried apricots, soaked in water for ½ hour
3-4 tablespoons currants or raisins
Juice of 1 lemon or to taste
1 teaspoon sugar
1. In a large frying pan, pan fry the onion in oil till golden.
2. With your hands, work the meat into a paste with the dried lime, cloves, allspice, ¾ teaspoon salt, and pepper, and roll into walnut-sized balls. Add them to the pan and cook, turning them to brown them all over.
3. Stir in the tomato paste, add the drained apricots and the currants or raisins, and cover with water. Simmer for about 25 minutes.
4. Crush the apricots a bit with a fork, add lemon juice and sugar and a little salt and pepper, and simmer for another 20 minutes.
This is also a great Pesach recipe – we made this for seder this year and it was a HUGE hit.
I am wondering whether you have used the Turkish apricots which are quite sweet or the more tart California dried apricots here?
Posted by Lisanne Weinberg | September 29, 2012, 8:54 pmI checked with Rebecca, who shared the recipe, and she wrote: “I usually use Turkish but used the California ones during Pesach and didn’t notice any difference in the sweetness level.” So I guess use whatever’s most convenient!
Posted by Anna Hanau | September 30, 2012, 1:14 pmFinally made this during the week, I had a mix of Turkish and California to use up. I used ground dried lime as stated in the recipe, but I think it would be just as good without. Delicious.
Posted by Lisanne Weinberg | April 14, 2013, 9:43 am