Kibbeh bil sanieh
Units
Temperature
Servings
Ingredients
Shell
- 300 g fine bulgur, number 1 grade, the finest; coarse bulgur will not bind rounded
- 500 g very lean ground beef, as lean as you can get for the shell rounded
- 1 onion, grated to a pulp rounded
- 4 g ground allspice rounded
- 2 g ground cinnamon rounded
- 10 g fine salt rounded
- 3 g black pepper rounded
Filling
- 400 g ground beef, about 15 percent fat, unlike the shell rounded
- 2 onions, finely diced rounded
- 80 g pine nuts, toasted in the pan first and set aside rounded
- 40 ml olive oil rounded
- 4 g ground allspice rounded
- 2 g ground cinnamon rounded
- 6 g fine salt rounded
- 15 ml pomegranate molasses, optional, and very good rounded
To finish
- 60 ml olive oil, poured over the scored top before baking rounded
Method
Method
- Soak the bulgur. Cover the fine bulgur in cold water for 20 minutes, then drain it in a sieve and squeeze it dry in a cloth. Wet bulgur gives you a shell that slumps instead of holding a crust.
- Make the filling first, so it can cool. Olive oil in a pan, onions 10 minutes until soft and golden, then the beef, breaking it up, until browned and dry. Allspice, cinnamon, salt and the pomegranate molasses. Off the heat, stir in the toasted pine nuts. Cool it completely. Warm filling melts the shell as you assemble.
- Work the shell to a paste. Bulgur, lean beef, grated onion and spices into a food processor and blitz in batches until it is genuinely smooth and pasty, adding a tablespoon of iced water if it will not come together. This is the step that decides everything. A coarse shell crumbles when you cut it; a properly worked one slices like a terrine. By hand it takes about 15 minutes of kneading and a bowl of iced water to keep dipping your hands in.
- Layer it. Oil a 28 cm round tin. Press half the shell mixture over the base in an even layer about 1 cm thick, using wet hands and working from the middle out. Spread all the filling over it, right to the edges.
- The top layer is the fiddly bit. Flatten portions of the remaining shell between wet palms into rough discs and lay them over the filling, then press the seams together with wet fingers until it is one continuous sheet. Trying to roll it out in one piece will tear it.
- Score before baking, not after. Cut diamonds through to the filling with a wet knife, and run the knife around the inside edge of the tin. Scoring after baking shatters the crust.
- Pour the oil over the top, letting it run into the scored lines.
- Bake at 200°C for 40 to 45 minutes, until the top is deep golden and crisp and the edges have pulled from the tin. Rest 15 minutes before cutting along the scored lines.
Notes
- Two different minces, on purpose. The shell wants lean beef so it sets firm and crisp. The filling wants fat so it stays juicy. Using one mince for both gives you either a greasy shell or a dry filling.
- Fine bulgur only. Number 1 grade, sometimes sold as fine burghul. Coarse bulgur stays in separate grains and the shell will not hold together, and couscous is not a substitute for it at all.
- Allspice and cinnamon in both layers. It reads as warm rather than as sweet, and it is the flavour that says kibbeh.
- Ahead. Assemble a day ahead and keep it in the fridge unbaked, or freeze it raw in the tin for 2 months and bake from frozen with 20 minutes extra.
- Serve with yogurt, plain and cold, and a tomato and parsley salad. It is rich and it wants something sharp.
Ingredient substitutions
- Beef rather than lamb. Lamb is the traditional meat and is stronger. Beef makes a milder kibbeh that is closer to what most people at a German table will expect anyway.
- Pine nuts are traditional and expensive. Chopped walnuts are the usual household substitute and are good, just earthier.
- Pomegranate molasses adds a sour depth. Without it, a squeeze of lemon in the filling gets you part of the way.