Divya Gugnani: Hi! I’m Divya Gugnani and we’re here at Pera Mediterranean Brasserie in New York City. We’re going to get some great tips on easy appetizers for entertaining that would be sure to please any crowd. So let’s go Behind the Burner and met the chefs.
Hi! I’m here with executive chef Jason Avery and his sue Chef Oscar Losama.
Jason Avery: Today, we’re going to make Turkish style Kofte which is basically a Mediterranean style meatball. Very nice to use in the backward on the grill, you can do on tray size portions of it or even little appetizer sizes. First, you start with some ground shock. It’s a good tip to know when you’re making because this is the fat content. Let’s say it’s about 35% fats to meat ratio.
We put chop partially inside. I like to chop partially to be very, very rough chop because you get a lot more flavor of the chloral fill. The partially flavor spread throughout the meatball rather than being very fine chop and just kind of gets lost in flavor.
The threat to the meatball is roasted garlic oil gives you perfumes to the meatball with the flavor of garlic and the also the oil while it cooking basically base inside. So you bite into, it’s nice and juicy.
Divya Gugnani: How do you make it?
Jason Avery: You can take either pill garlic or a whole clove of the garlic probably the easiest at the home. I use neutral oil, a good canola oil or vegetable oil because the extra virgin, you would bring it to a certain temperature. You’re going to lose the flavor and you just going to low temper for about 45 minutes to an hour. Stir the garlic in. The garlic will turn brown. You’ll start to smell the garlic in the air and whatever garlic is left over. Oil, actually the roast grill, it can get smeared on bread and in crustiness, add canola paste and a roast of garlic oil that you could sauté with. You can use salad dressings, vinaigrettes and put on your salad.
Divya Gugnani: Sounds good.
Jason Avery: We’re going to put some point bread crown, that’s actually been soak in a little of nut, whole egg and then some fresh cumin and fresh ground black pepper.
Divya Gugnani: So now we’re getting the flavors of the Mediterranean acumen.
Jason Avery: So Oscar is going to mix up nice. And like I said, we can use smaller size or larger size. Now, we’re ready to go. We have some of the lab Mediterranean meatballs ready. I’m going to place them on the grill. Ideas to get your grill very, very, very hot, let it come to a little bit of a smoother so it doesn’t shear while you’re grilling. And I like a little trick for home is that if you get spice wretches, soak them a little bit in water. You can kind of grill over a charcoals or even put them in a gas grill if you have a little screen and give a little smoky flavor—
Divya Gugnani: Flavor to it.
Jason Avery: --to the meatballs.
Divya Gugnani: You can use lime. You could use any other meat mixture.
Jason Avery: The beef for lime is the most flavorful. So what we’ll do is we’ll grill it. We’ll give a nice flavor on both sides, not too charge. It’s a little bit of color right this sizes. They cook in about two in a half to three minutes.
And how we serve in here at Pera is we do a little three compartment dish. I start with the Tzatziki which is the yogurt cucumber sauce.
Divya Gugnani: So what’s in that?
Jason Avery: Cucumber yogurt dill garlic, a little bit of lemon, place them right on top of the yogurt.
Divya Gugnani: Did you rest them at all?
Jason Avery: Of course if you’re going to rest them a minute or so, it will the keep the juices in a little bit better. We’ll finish with a little finely chop skiing. There you go Mediterranean meatballs.
Divya Gugnani: So now we’re roasting some of my clip for another dish.
Jason Avery: It’s a called roasted whip A plant. It is style that I’ve learned being in stumble. What we’re doing is basically roasting the whole eggplant on the grill. The idea is to get very tender inside, churning the outside to give a little bit of smoke in essence to the eggplant. And the key for the dish I think is trying and find the smallest eggplant you can. The smaller ones have a little bit less seeds and do better for smoother mix.
Divya Gugnani: How long do you think it takes?
Jason Avery: Probably you do it half hour. The skin will star to blister and you can feel right off.
Divya Gugnani: So now there are plants off the grill.
Jason Avery: You want to lightly pill the skin off on the eggplant. What we have here is finished product to the knife or a folk. You can just kind of strip the excess seeds or just chop it a little bit. You get in the mixing bowl. I have the onion, a little bit of the garlic. You’re going to start with the vegetable which is a neutral flavored oil which will help emulsified leaf eggplant, give it some body. If you did it all with that extra virgin, it kind of overwhelm the eggplant flavor with just olive flavor.
And you mashing it with the back to the forth to incorporate the oil in to it, give it a nice smooth texture, you would add a little bit of the good extra virgin olive oil which give you a little bit of olive flavor. Crush your salt, any if there’s a deal on top.
Final product, after mixing, it’s very nice to chill it and we serve it here with their homemade balloon pita that’s coming up on the oven you see behind me or pita chips that we make here as well.
Divya Gugnani: So Jason we have some great Mediterranean appetizers here.
Jason Avery: Yeah, let’s dig in. You definitely have a little roaster grill that we discussed, a little hint to the human which the shrimps use to Mediterranean and the meatballs aren’t too dense, I think they’re nice and moist.
Divya Gugnani: Cheers, thanks for having us. On Behind the Burner, you can enjoy this exclusive opportunity to get a taste of Pera in your home with Pera meats to go.
Stay tune to Behind the Burner when we give you the tips, trick and techniques, they are lighting the culinary world on fire.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services