Our Cypriot meatballs recipe for Cyprus style keftedes makes melt-in-the-mouth meatballs imbued with heady spices such as ground cinnamon and fragrant herbs like fresh flat leaf parsley, fresh dill, and fresh and dried mint. Made with minced beef and pork, and grated potatoes, preferably Cypriot potatoes, the meatballs are shallow-fried and served with talatouri (Cypriot tzatziki), pita bread and salad.
It’s meatball weather. So while we have loads of meatball recipes, I wanted to share a recipe for Cypriot meatballs, called ‘keftedes’ in Greek. Cypriot keftedes differ from Greek keftedes in a few ways: they include potatoes, a specialty of Cyprus; cinnamon, a much loved spice in Cyprus; and fresh and dried mint, a favourite herb of Cypriots. These are fantastic with this Cypriot tomato salad or refreshing watermelon, tomato and halloumi salad.
During our decade in the Middle East, we spent a fair bit of time on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. It was initially for holidays, as Cyprus was a 4-hour flight from Abu Dhabi and Dubai, where we lived for seven years, and later for travel writing assignments. After years of co-authoring guidebooks for Lonely Planet with Terence, one of my first solo guidebook writing gigs was a first edition Cyprus guidebooks for AA Guides, the publishing arm of the British Automobile Association. I’m so proud of that little book.
During our time in Cyprus, we became completely smitten with Cypriot cuisine, which is very similar to Greek food but has incorporated more culinary influences during its long rich history and from ancient conquerors and inhabitants – Greeks, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Arabs, Byzantines, Sicilians, English, French, Venetians, Ottomans, British, and Greeks again. Although it’s clearly the Greek, Turkish and Arab influences most recognisable in Cypriot food – and no more so than in these Cypriot meatballs.
If you are a fan of meatballs – and who isn’t?! – you can serve meatballs with pasta, noodles or rice, in congee or soup, tuck meatballs into a baguette, or roll meatballs up in rice paper – we have lots of recipes with meatballs. I love these tender German meatballs, our meatball Stroganoff, and these Spanish meatballs, which we cook as part of a Spanish tapas feast.
For more cooking inspiration, please do browse our recipe archives, where we have many hundreds of recipes. You can click on the heart on the right of every recipe to save your favourites in your private account.
Cypriot Meatballs Recipe for Cyprus Style Keftedes with Beef, Pork and Potato
Slate grey skies and storms have had me dreaming of the sunny Mediterranean. I was reminiscing about travels in Greece and Turkey with my mum, which took my thoughts to Cyprus and the time that Terence and I spent on the island over the years, and the meals we enjoyed – and these Cypriot meatballs.
If you haven’t been to Cyprus, it’s an island-nation divided into southern Greek Cyprus and northern Turkish Cyprus. It’s a whopping 1,100kms from Greece, but just 100kms south of Turkey, and some 170kms west of Syria and Lebanon, so it’s only natural that Cypriot cuisine has incorporated regional, cultural and historical influences.
The island’s history is truly ancient. Cyprus is home to some of the Mediterranean’s most spectacular archaeological sites and archaeologists have found everything from the remains of ancient round houses with terrazzo floors to evidence of the existence of sheep, goats, cattle, deer, and pigs – as well as dogs and cats!
And while Cypriots from the Greek south eat more pork, lamb and chicken than beef, it’s the indigenous Cyprus cattle, endangered for many years, that is most treasured on the island. Thousands of years old, the handsome brown cattle breed have adapted to the island’s environment and 300-odd days of sunshine.
The free-range native Cyprus cattle now spend their days grazing on the lush Akrotiri marshlands and their meat is prized for its rich beefy flavour and tenderness that Cypriot farmers compare to Wagyu beef, so I actually used surprisingly affordably Australian Wagyu beef mince for these Cypriot meatballs.
It’s worth noting that while a lot of writers on the food of Cyprus claim that Cypriots eat more pork (in the south) and lamb (in the north), Cypriot cuisine features a lot of beef dishes. There’s Cypriot-style beef stifado (stew), pastitsio (baked pasta with spiced beef mince and halloumi béchamel), şeftali (Cypriot beef and lamb kebabs), bulghur köfte stuffed with beef mince, and more.
I’ll share more Cypriot recipes, but for now let me share some tips to making this Cypriot meatballs recipe for Cyprus style keftedes.
Tips to Making this Cypriot Meatballs Recipe for Cyprus Style Keftedes
Just a few tips to making our Cypriot meatballs recipe for Cyprus style keftedes. We use minced beef and minced pork, but you could use a combination of beef and pork or even lamb. The one ingredient that’s a must is finely grated potato. Try to source Cypriot potatoes, or, if you don’t live in the Mediterranean, something similar to the beloved potatoes of Cyprus.
This Cypriot meatballs recipe is so easy – you just need to mix all the ingredients in a big bowl. I recommend using your hands to combine the ingredients until they’re well incorporated. Don’t over-mix as you want a loose and rustic texture rather than firm and bouncy.
I use a tablespoon to scoop out the mince mixture and then roll it into a ball, around 4cm in diameter, but back in our Siem Reap kitchen, Terence and I use digital kitchen scales to weigh the spoons of minced meat mixture before shaping them into meatballs. By weighing the mixture you’re ensuring the meatballs are uniform in size, and the meatballs cook evenly.
I shallow-fry these Cypriot meatballs in a big, deep frying pan but feel free to use your favourite skillet or even a round flat bottomed wok. If you’re having an outdoor weekend barbecue, you could also cook these Cyprus-style meatballs on an outdoor barbecue or grill.
Cypriot Meatballs Recipe for Cyprus Style Keftedes
Ingredients
- 250 g minced beef
- 250 g minced pork
- 2 large potatoes - finely grated, liquid squeezed out, prefer
- 1 onion - grated
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp cracked black pepper
- 1 tbsp flat leaf parsley - finely chopped
- 1 tbsp fresh dill - finely chopped
- 1 tbsp fresh mint - finely chopped
- 1 tsp dried mint
- 1 egg - beaten
- Olive oil for shallow frying
Instructions
- To a big mixing bowl, add the minced beef and pork, finely grated potato, grated onion, cinnamon, salt, pepper, fresh and dried herbs, and beaten egg; use your hands to combine the ingredients until they’re well incorporated. Don’t over-mix as you want a loose and rustic texture rather than firm and bouncy.
- Sprinkle a little oil onto a tray so the meatballs don’t stick. Use a tablespoon to scoop out the mince mixture and roll it into a ball around 4cm in diameter, lay it on the tray, and repeat until you’ve used up all the mixture.
- Prepare a serving plate or two by spreading out some tzatziki and sprinkling it with fresh parsley, mint and dill sprigs.
- To a large fry pan, pour in enough oil to generously coat the pan. You’ll probably need to cook the meatballs in a couple of batches. Lay down each meatball, separating them by a few centimetres; by the time you’ve laid down the meatballs it will be time to turn the first meatball; using tongs continue turning the meatballs in the same order you laid them down so they cook evenly. Turn the meatballs a couple more times until they’re evenly coloured and cooked, around 10 minutes. Then do the same with the next batch.
- As each batch is cooked, use tongs to transfer the meatballs to the serving plate (or two), placing the meatballs on the bed of tzatziki. Just before serving, drizzle on a little quality extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of dried mint, and serve with warm pita, tzatziki and salad.
Notes
Nutrition
Please do let us know in the Comments section below if you make this Cypriot meatballs recipe as we love to hear how our recipes turn out for our readers.
