Kafta bi ssanieh

1 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
2½ cup Cubed tender lamb; (or beef)
2 cups Burghul; (crushed wheat or Cream of Wheat cereal)
2 mediums Sized onions
2 teaspoons Salt
½ teaspoon Pepper
Ice water
1 cup Ground meat
1 cup Chopped onions
½ cup Pine nuts
½ cup Cooking fat
1 teaspoon Salt
½ teaspoon Pepper
¼ teaspoon Cinnamon; (or allspice in the Turkish version)

Directions

KIBBEH

STUFFING

This is a yummy recipe that we use instead of meat loaf. The original I have calls for cubed lamb or beef but I have always used a good grade of hamburger (very lean) or ground roast. Which will work just fine. Cover this with a cream sauce or one of the tomato cream sauces in the spaghetti section.

Grease a shallow 12"X18" baking pan. Put a layer of basic Kibbeh (recipe below) smoothly and firmly over the bottom of the pan to the depth of 1".

Cover this evenly with a layer of stuffing. Top with a second layer of Kibbeh slightly thicker than the first. Score into Diamond shapes with a sharp knife. Pour 1 cup melted samneth (butter) over all. Bake in moderate oven about 20 minutes or until well browned. Serve hot or cold. Serves 8 persons.

Kibbeh is virtually the national dish of Lebanon and to call it a meat loaf does not quite raise it to the heights it deserves. Its traditional preparation is dramatic. It requires a stone mortar & heavy pestle (called the jorn & modaqqa). The meat is pounded with rhythmic motions until it is smooth and pasty. All the neighborhood knows the sound of kibbeh in the making.

Select the lamb from the loin of the animal. (Or if you prefer, use beef with very little fat, or fat removed). Pound the cubed meat with a teaspoon of salt in a stone mortar with a wooden mallet. Remove meet for mortar when it becomes pasty. Now pound onion with a teaspoon of salt and pepper until it is reduced to a pulp. Combine meat and onion and pound together until very smooth. Wash burghul & meat with the hands. Pound together in mortar.

Add salt to taste. Dip mallet in icewater occasionally to keep meat moist & smooth. Properly prepared kibbeh must be pounded at least an hour. Then it is ready to be eaten as is, or cooked in a variety of ways.

Preparation time may be shortened considerably by grinding meat several times through fine blade of meat grinder. Grind onion twice. Grind onions once again with meat. Combine wash burghul with meat-onion mixture. Knead well, seasoning with salt & pepper. Grind this mixture three times, adding a teaspoon of icewater to keep it smooth.

Stuffing: Heat fat. Fry chopped onions in it until soft. Add meat and fry until lightly browned. Add pine nuts and continue frying until they are slightly browned and meat has lost its pink color entirely. Season with salt, pepper & cinnamon. Pour off excess fat.

(From Food from the Arab World Marie Karam Khayat & Margaret Clark Keatinge, Khayat's, Beirut 1959) Parenthetical adaptations Posted to EAT-L Digest by Louis Stull <lstull@...> on Apr 13, 1998

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