Minced Chicken Kofta

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The minced chicken kofta is an easy entrée or appetizer recipe that you can cook in a grill pan over gas. These succulent koftas made with minced chicken and assorted spices are easy, healthy and yummy.

Name me one person, from the Indian subcontinent who doesn’t like a kebab or a kofta. I sometimes go crazy on koftas. They are easy to make, soft, succulent and you can have them just like that – without a reason, without anything else! This is a fairly easy kofta recipe with minced chicken which I made on a grill pan over gas cooktop – so you don’t need an oven, a tandoor, or even any skewers! So if you are a beginner at the kofta and kebab journey – this should be your go to recipe.

I like the look of the koftas, somehow!

Recipe Inspiration

I am quite a TLC and FOX Life junkie and watch a lot of food programs. So in one of the episodes of Food Safari they had aired these beautiful Lebanese delicacies. The ground meat kofta in Lebanese cuisine is called a kafta. I simply tweaked it here and there to make my minced chicken kofta and made it even easier – got rid of the skewers and the charcoal grille.

Let’s Get started

First thing’s first, I need to tell you, I wanted to do a step by step photo post for this recipe and had clicked the breakups. But very mysteriously they vanished from my phone. I click all photos on my iPhone these days. I am left with some 5 photos of the finished product! But maybe it’s just an excuse for me to try out some more kofta recipes!

We’ll start with minced chicken – you can get the frozen ones and thaw them till they are at room temperature or take freshly minced chicken. You could also use boneless chicken pieces grind them in a mixer. All you need to do is finely chop some onions, garlic, coriander leaves and add them to the minced chicken in a bowl.

I have a habit of making my own spice mixes. I find the flavors of freshly homemade spices better than the store bought ones. I have this jar of dry roasted spice powder which I use in a lot of recipes. Don’t freak out – all you need to do is dry roast some green cardamom, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, dried red chilies, fennel seeds on a pan over gas. Cool the spices down and grind them in a mixer grinder. You can cover and store this in an air tight container for a month.

Add the spice mix, red paprika powder and seasoning – white pepper and salt and knead the chicken mixture with hand till smooth. You need to do this with your hands – you will get to feel the texture.

Pro Tip – If the chicken is not finely minced and has little big chunks – pulse it in a mixer or a food processor for a few seconds.

Since we are not using any binding agents like egg or soaked bread the koftas might fall apart if the chicken mixture isn’t smooth enough.

Once mixed, dampen your hands with water and shape the mixture in small koftas. You can shape them round or elongated ones like me. If you want you can shape them around skewers too.

Pro Tip – If you are using bamboo skewers, please soak them in water for 15 minutes, at least. You don’t want burnt skewers at all.

Heat up your grill pan on high flame over your gas cooktop.

Lower the flame once the pan is hot and brush some olive oil. Place the koftas on the pan and grill first on low flame 2 minutes each side and then on high flame.

Pro Tip – If you cook grill in high flame from the beginning you’ll end up with a burnt kofta on the outside and under cooked in the inside.

I like this char grilled effect that the grill pan gives!

Serving

You can serve it with some green salad and a yogurt dip.

That’s seriously easy peasy isn’t it?

Let me know your thoughts people.