How To Cook Iraqi Fried Beef Meatballs (Uroog) - Recipe

Uroog are Iraqi fried minced beef meatballs that are often served in hummus bread, Baba Ganush , pickles and vegetable salad. Uruguay is a popular street food in Iraq, but it can be prepared very easily at home, no matter what country you are in.

For those of you who are used to eating hamburgers with ordinary meatballs, this will be an exciting new introduction. Iraqi meatballs are fragrant, have a lighter texture than all-meat meatballs and are not as greasy, despite the fact that they are fried. This is because the mixture from which they are prepared is moist, which does not allow fat to penetrate into it. If you do not like to fry because of the porridge and the dirt that remains after that, be sure that when preparing urugu you will get away with the "big" cleaning.

Required products :

• 300 grams of minced beef
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• parsley to taste
• 1 egg
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/3 teaspoon leavening agent (or yeast)
• 3/4 tea cup of water
• 3/4 tea cup flour
• frying oil (or other fat)

Method of preparation :

Mix the minced beef with the onion, parsley and egg and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the leavening agent, water and flour and knead the minced meat. Put the mixture in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes to absorb all the flavors, then heat the oil (or other fat) in a pan.

Using a spoon, pour the mixture into the heated fat and shape the meatballs into the desired shape.

Serve juicy and delicious Iraqi meatballs with burgers in combination with snacks, sauces, pickled vegetables, salad or roast meat.

Have a good time!

Tips for serving and preparing Iraqi fried beef meatballs (Uroog)

You can serve the meatballs with milk sauce. To prepare it, you need yogurt, garlic, dill and finely chopped cucumber. Combine, stir and serve.

Mustard and vinegar sauce, dating back to time and bequeathed by the ancient Sumerians who lived in Iraqi lands, is another suitable choice for serving urugu meatballs. It is prepared with roasted crushed almonds (1 handful), chopped parsley, 2-3 cloves of chopped garlic, 1/4 teaspoon of vinegar, 2 teaspoons of mustard, 1/4 teaspoon of olive oil. All ingredients are mixed, stirred and the sauce is ready to serve.

Tomato snack with peppers and pomegranate is a very good addition to the meatballs of Iraqi cuisine. The necessary products for its preparation are roasted crushed walnuts (handful), 2-3 roasted red peppers (crushed), 1/4 teaspoon black pepper and cumin, salt and lemon juice to taste and 2 tablespoons of pomegranate juice. Mix and mix all the ingredients to prepare the tomato snack, which can also be served as a side dish to meat, vegetable, fried dishes or pasta.

In Iraq, urugu is very popular, served as a sandwich for breakfast, along with hot sweet tea and for dinner, which is usually lighter than lunch. The ideal urugu dish includes several pieces of fried eggplant and potatoes with pickles, lots of fresh herbs and a vegetable salad with green onions.

Middle Eastern chefs have been preparing this dish for centuries, albeit under different names, for which there are recipes preserved in medieval Arabic cookbooks. One of the recipes resembling Urugu is Tardeen. It is prepared with minced lean red meat, combined with crushed nuts, onions, a little honey, eggs, cinnamon, ginger, mastic, anise, black pepper and white wheat flour. Moisten everything with a little water, form into thin round discs and fry.

Urug is traditionally made with fermented dough. For ease, flour and a small amount of dry yeast or baking powder can be used. Although parsley is traditionally used, it can be replaced with herbs such as mint, basil, dill or garlic. Meatballs can be shaped into an oblong or round shape.