Lebanon Recipes – Kibbeh

Ingredients

• 2 lb 10 oz lean meat (lamb or beef) pounded or ground very fine
• 1 lb 5 oz burghul
• 1 lb 5 oz mutton fat
• 14 oz onions
• 4 tsp salt
• 1 lb butter
• 1 tsp spices

Spices:

• 2 oz sweet pepper
• 1 oz hot pepper
• 1/3 oz cinnamon

Method:

1. Grind meat and onions coarsely in a food chopper. Then put this mixture into a cutter and add
2. salt and pepper. Blend in cutter for about ten minutes. As cutter turns, add small cubes of ice to be ground with the mixture. This helps give the meat more consistency.
3. At the end of 10 minutes start adding the burghul. Continue blending ten minutes longer after all burghul has been added. The final mixture should be like soft dough to make it easy to shape into various styles of kibbeh.
4. Prepare kibbeh in large mounds making a hole inside each to add stuffing.
5. Arrange in a baking pan generously greased with melted butter.
6. Bake in a hot oven and sprinkle or brush remainder of melted butter over the mounds while they are baking.
7. Kibbeh must come out of oven with a reddish brown colour.

Main image: Fried Kibbeh, Hungry Dudes, Flickr Creative Commons