Meat-and-potatoes is a phrase I’ve come to think of tinged with not a little pejorative, whether applied to outlook or dinner — but one of the most effective ways to sidestep the lowering veil of culinary or generalised boredom is, of course, to see how other people are doing it better. In the case of this Palestinian recipe for kefte bi tahini, it’s both a glamorously dashing yet earthy pairing and an opportunity to celebrate and experience Palestine’s cuisine. This recipe comes from Yasmin Khan’s wonderful Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen, and it’s one I’ve cooked from before. I first found a similar recipe in The Palestinian Table, a compelling book by Reem Kassis that I’ve also cooked from before — the relative simplicity of Khan’s version turned my head, but its inclusion in both books only served to make me want to cook it more; clearly this is a recipe people love.

Lamb has a natural sweet richness that welcomes the barky warmth of cinnamon with open arms; here it’s dovetailed with the equally amenably warm allspice and the actual heat of chilli, rolled into light, garlicky kefte and baked over the potatoes, which thirstily soak up all that flavour. I’m afraid I can’t think of a better — or at least, a more accurate way to describe the potatoes other than “pleasantly gluggy” but they are, and it’s so welcome. Don’t expect crispy, brittle roast potatoes here, these are tender, juicily drenched in flavour, golden brown with just a little crunch around the edges here and there.

Draped over everything is a cashmere coloured sauce of fulsomely nutty hulled tahini sharpened with lemon, a trembling pile of flat-leaf parsley (or, as I used here in a pinch, coriander) and golden pine nuts toasted in butter for a final high-kick of unctuousness. I ate the lot over two days, but this could actually feed far more people, especially if there’s a bit more on the table surrounding this. It looks so welcomingly unfussy and yet elegantly pulled together — plus, you can make the meatballs the night before and refrigerate them, covered — which makes it as perfect for entertaining as it does for a regular dinner that you don’t have to overthink. Leaving you time to consider everything going on in the world, but I know you are already, anyway.

If you’re after further ‘what’s for dinner’ recipes that can veer comfortably between everyday and fancy, I recommend my Sheet Pan Gnocchi Puttanesca, this Hands-free Black Bean and Brown Rice Casserole, my Pork Meatballs with Fennel, Apple, Mustard and Creme Fraiche, my Instant Gnocchi, Big Beans, and Red Chilli Pesto Sauce or this Salmon with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Fennel.

Kefte bi tahini (Lamb meatballs with tahini)

A simple yet luscious pairing — spiced meat, softly roasted potatoes — with cool and dense tahini sauce and buttery pine nuts. I’ve lightly adapted this recipe from the beautiful cookbook Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen by Yasmin Khan.

Potatoes:

• 700g potatoes (or thereabouts, you’re unlikely to get bang on — also, I used Vivaldi)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• a couple pinches of salt

Kefte:

• 1 onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• 25g flat-leaf parsley
• 800g lamb mince
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons allspice
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Tahini sauce:

• 75ml hulled tahini
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice, plus more to taste
• 80ml water
• 1 clove garlic
• salt to taste

To serve:

• 20g flat-leaf parsley
• 50g pine nuts
• 15g salted butter

1: Set your oven to 180C/350F. Scrub the 700g potatoes if need be, and peel them if you want, but I didn’t. Slice them into 1cm rounds, place in a single layer on a very shallow roasting tray or sheet pan, and brush with the two tablespoons of olive oil. Sprinkle with a little salt, and bake for 40 mins.

2: While this is happening, move onto the kefte. The recipe recommends using a food processor, which — while an extra thing to wash — can make exceedingly quick work of the chopping, so I make the most of its shortcut capabilities. First, peel the onion, trim the ends, and slice it roughly into four pieces. Peel the three garlic cloves and place them, along with the onion pieces, into the food processor and pulse to finely chop. Add the 25g flat-leaf parsley, stems and all, and pulse again to form a finely-chopped green mush.

3: To this add the 800g lamb mince — breaking it up a little so it’s not in one large block — along with the 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes, the 1 and 1/2 teaspoons each of cinnamon and allspice, plus plenty of salt and pepper. Again, pulse several times to smoothly combine, but don’t overblend.

4: Depending on how long this takes you, you may still have a few minutes, in which case you could make the sauce by whisking together the 75ml hulled tahini and the two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice — it will appear clay-like and uncooperative at first, but as you slowly stir in the 80ml water it will suddenly turn into a smooth, pale sauce. Peel and finely dice the garlic clove and stir it in, along with salt to taste. If you have extra parsley and the inclination, feel free to finely chop some and add it to this sauce.

5: Remove the potatoes from the oven after 40 minutes, at which point they should be very tender, and shape the lamb mixture into oval quenelles (by which I guess I just mean into ovals) of about 5cm length. Brush them with the two tablespoons of olive oil, layer them on top of the potatoes, evenly, and return to the oven for another 15 minutes. If you didn’t have time to make the sauce before — now you do.

6: Finally, to serve, roughly chop the remaining 20g flat-leaf parsley and set aside. Toast the 50g pine nuts in the 15g butter in a saucepan until just barely browned. Remove the kefte and potatoes from the oven, drip over the tahini sauce and sprinkle over the pine nuts and chopped parsley. Serve immediately.

This serves 3-4 people, definitely 4 if you have a couple of things alongside it; though it could serve heaps of people as part of a thoroughly-laden potluck table, particularly if you make the kefte a little smaller. I got about 20 out of this quantity of lamb.

Notes: You can probably tell that i’ve used coriander instead of flat-leaf parsley in the garnish — I simply ran out in the heat of the moment but its grassy freshness is certainly welcome here.

music lately:

City of Millions by Red Temple Spirit, that watery guitar, that baleful vocal!

Spiracle by Flower Face, vulnerably feral and ferally vulnerable, like lifting up a rock to reveal a swarm of bugs but then they arrange themselves in a heart formation.

Tell Me Something Good by Chaka Khan and Rufus — that squelchy, syrupy guitar lick, like shimmering droplets of olive oil landing in vinegar, that louche chorus! Also no one has ever looked better than Chaka Khan singing this song!

Nine People’s Favourite Thing from the Broadway cast recording of [title of show]. Here’s it’s performed in concert by the cast, and the triumphantly hopeful stumble of the chorus, the way their voice collide and swell at the end, every time Heidi Blickenstaff belts lustily, when Susan Blackwell picks up the chorus again after her monologue — the eternally reverberating line, “I’d rather be nine people’s favourite thing than a hundred people’s ninth favourite thing”! This song will always be important.

PS: Again I’m bringing your attention to ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal. Their latest message on 30 October reports that their team are “tirelessly delivering safe drinking water daily to families facing unimaginable hardship.” Further afield, if you have paypal you could also consider donating to Gaza Soup Kitchen — in their words, “in a world abundant in resources, no child should ever go to bed hungry. Right now in Gaza, every bite is a story of resilience and hope…your donation is their tomorrow.”