Akçaabat Köftesi

Ingredients

• 700 g beef chuck
• 100 g beef suet or kidney fat, plus a piece for the grill bars
• 6 garlic cloves
• 1½ tsp salt
• 60 g stale white bread
• 1 tsp black pepper
• White bean piyaz, grilled peppers and ayran, to serve

Before you cook

• Ask the butcher to mince the beef chuck together with the suet twice, on a coarse plate.
• Crush the garlic cloves to a paste with the salt.
• Soak the stale bread in water for two minutes, squeeze it bone dry, and crumble it.
• Knead the mince, garlic paste, bread and black pepper together for five minutes, slapping the mixture back into the bowl as you go so it tightens.
• Cover the bowl and chill it for at least three hours, or overnight.

Steps

1. Light a charcoal grill and let the coals burn down to white ash with a steady, fierce heat.
2. Divide the chilled mixture into twelve pieces with wet hands.
3. Roll each piece into a fat sausage, then flatten it into a long oval about a centimetre and a half thick.
4. Rub the hot grill bars with a piece of suet so nothing sticks.
5. Lay the köfte across the bars and grill them for four minutes without moving them.
6. Turn them once and grill the second side for three to four minutes, until the crust is deeply browned and the centre is only just pink.
7. Rest the köfte on a warm plate for three minutes.
8. Serve with white bean piyaz, grilled peppers, raw sliced onion and cold ayran.