Kafta bi Tahini

Ingredients

• 600g minced lamb (or half lamb, half beef)
• 1 large onion
• 1 large bunch flat-leaf parsley (about 60g)
• 1.5 tsp seven spice (baharat)
• 0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1.5 tsp fine salt
• 0.5 tsp black pepper
• 600g potatoes
• 2 tomatoes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 150g light tahini
• 80ml lemon juice
• 2 garlic cloves
• 200ml water
• 0.5 tsp salt for the sauce
• 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts

Before you cook

• Peel the potatoes and slice them into half centimetre rounds.
• Slice the tomatoes into rounds the same thickness.
• Finely chop the onion and parsley, or pulse them together in a food processor.
• Crush the garlic to a paste with a pinch of salt.
• Heat the oven to 200C.

Steps

1. Mix the minced lamb with the chopped onion, parsley, seven spice, cinnamon, salt and pepper in a bowl.
2. Knead the mixture with your hands for two minutes until it turns slightly sticky and holds together.
3. Press the kafta into an even layer across the base of a large oven dish.
4. Bake the kafta for fifteen minutes, until it is firm and has released its juices.
5. Toss the potato slices with the olive oil and a pinch of salt in a bowl.
6. Pull the dish from the oven and tip off most of the rendered fat.
7. Lay the potato slices over the kafta in overlapping rows.
8. Tuck the tomato slices in among the potatoes.
9. Return the dish to the oven and bake for a further twenty minutes.
10. Whisk the tahini, lemon juice, garlic paste and half a teaspoon of salt in a bowl until it seizes and stiffens.
11. Whisk in the water gradually until you have a smooth sauce roughly the thickness of single cream.
12. Pour the tahini sauce evenly over the tray so it settles between the potato slices.
13. Bake for a final twenty minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and browned in patches and the potatoes give easily to a knife.
14. Scatter over the toasted pine nuts and serve straight from the dish with rice or bread.