From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sheftalia (Greek: σεφταλιά, Turkish: Şeftali) is a traditional Cypriot food. It is a type of crépinette, a sausage without skin, that uses caul fat, or omentum, the membrane that surrounds the stomach of pig or lamb, to wrap the ingredients rather than sausage casing. Caul fat is transparent and naturally fatty, giving sheftalia a very nice flavor when grilled. The filling is made of ground pork or lamb shoulder or leg, onion, fresh parsley and salt and pepper. The ground meat is thoroughly mixed with the finely chopped onion, parsley, salt, and pepper and then is formed to small round balls. The mixture balls are then placed on the spread caul fat and then squares of caul fat are cut around them. The caul fat squares are then wrapped and shaped into little sausages and then passed through two skewers. Sheftalia are then grilled preferably on charcoal until golden brown, about 20 to 30 minutes. They can be enjoyed with fine Cyprus red dry wine. In Cyprus it is very common to find kebab or souvlaki restaurants that also sell sheftalia in pita bread. In fact it is so common that nearly every neighborhood has at least one souvlitzidiko as the kebab restaurant is called in Greek.
[edit] External links
