Kofta Balls in Tomato Sauce - The Oldest Vegan Recipe

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna,

Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare . . .

Did you know that devotees of Krishna have a cuisine all their own? Go to any Krishna restaurant and the food items will be readily identifiable.

For about ten years, I lived in Dallas Texas which has a large, vibrant Krishna community. Every year on World Food Day, they would provide free meals all day long and I volunteered my services in the kitchen of their gorgeous restaurant, Kalachandji's. So, that’s how I became familiar with their cuisine.

First of all, one will notice a vegan vein. Being strict believers in the principle of karma and reincarnation, nothing is served that involves the killing of animals. "Every meal gives the gift of life," is one of their tenets. 

Being that the Krishna movement is a form of Vedantic Hinduism, most food items will have an Indian flavor to them with one notable difference:  Krishna devotees strictly refrain from eating onions or garlic, for both, they believe, are offensive to God and that they arouse sexual desires. In the place of garlic and onions, you’ll find the ever-present and very unique spice called asafetida or “hing”. It is the powered, dried gum resin of a herbaceous plant and, in its raw state, has a very strong odor reminiscent of . . . well . . . kitty pee.

Believe me, if you spill it or leave it uncovered, your dwelling will smell like a tom-cat has left his mark. However, once cooked, it does impart a musky, evocative flavor reminiscent of onions and "that" flavor is the truly the mark of Krishna cuisine.

One of my favorite dishes is their Kofta Balls in Tomato Sauce. The devotees at Kalachanhdji’s served many trays of it every year on World Food Day in Dallas and it was always a staple in the countless daily meals that the Krishna community provided to the homeless and shut-ins throughout the year.

A more tasty, appealing, nutritious, and inexpensive entree would be really hard to find. This was a quintessential “vegan meatball” long before – nay, decades before -- “vegan” had ever come to the forefront.

It’s a first cousin to spaghetti and meatballs but with a Vedantic twist: Garbanzo bean flour (besan) is mixed with spices, including the ever-present asafetida, grated cauliflower, grated cabbage, rolled into balls and deep fried. These are served with a flavorful tomato sauce (yes, with asafetida) over pasta.

Oh, and another quality about asafetida is that it prevents flatulence. Hey, we've got cauliflower, cabbage and bean-flour going on here but nary a toot follows the meal;  

Perhaps that may be the non-offensive part.

The result is meat-less meatballs that are surprisingly juicy. Very juicy in fact. I frequently prepared this dish when I was a Cistercian monk and, even though one jocular monk referred to my kofta balls as "coughed-up balls", they all enjoyed them.

Start with 1 ½ cups of besan (garbanzo bean flour)
1 Tbs garam masala 

1 ½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½  tsp turmeric
½ tsp asafetida
½ tsp cayenne

Mix in:

2 cups grated cauliflower (which is really 1 whole cauliflower)
2 cups grated cabbage

Mix it all together with your hands and really squoosh it together. (I like to don latex gloves for hand-mixing and squooshing) The grated cauliflower and cabbage exude just enough juice to bring it all together. You’ll have a moist paste which can be formed into 1-inch balls.

Form them in 1-inch balls. Place them aside whilst continuing with the rest:

Tomato Sauce:

1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 cup water
¼ cup olive or vegetable oil

1 tsp sugar
½ tsp asafetida (“hing”)
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp salt

Fry the spices in the oil, add the tomatoes, sugar, and water. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a fry-pan with a half-inch of oil and shallow-fry the kofta balls for at least 12 minutes, 6 minutes on each side, until dark golden brown. (You really want to avoid undercooked insides, so don't make the balls any more than an inch in diameter.)

Note: Please do not consider baking them. The original recipe from decades ago called for frying them in "ghee" i.e. clarified butter. Frying them in the oil of your choice is consolation enough. This is one vegan food item where indulgence is totally required, substantiated, and justified. . . 

. . . Heat the oil and ride the wave.

Place them in the above-mentioned tomato sauce for 10 minutes and serve over pasta.

Devotees offer a prayer over each food item and set aside one serving of each recipe as an offering to Krishna. However, I never saw what they mysteriously did with it afterward.

If there's a Krishna temple in your city, check it out and see if they have a restaurant. Many of them do and I’ve always appreciated their unique cuisine. The smell of jasmine incense is usually wafting in from the adjoining temple giving the restaurant its own other-worldly ambiance.

Aside from its very identifiable flavor, there’s just "something" very appealing and special about consuming vegan offerings from our Vedantic companions. 

Regardless of one's outlook, I doubt there isn't something auspicious about consuming thoughtful, spiritualized sustenance that we cannot all acknowledge, regardless of the faith from whence it comes.

Do enjoy -- I beg of you. They're absolutely divine. 

Hare Krishna . . .