The first thing I learned about kibbeh is that when you mention that word, you make a lot of friends. Since I wrote the article about my Lebanese cooking lesson several months ago and mentioned that I would be doing a follow-up article with some kibbeh recipes, people have come out of the woodwork.
I had a friend contact me from Dallas offering to come over for the follow-up lesson. That is true devotion. She explained that an opportunity to make a big pan of kibbeh would be worth the trip from Dallas. I have also had several people offer to teach me to make their family’s version of kibbeh. Another friend from Vicksburg offered a lesson with her version of this middle eastern favorite made using a food processor.
If you have never had it or heard of it, you may be asking: What is kibbeh? According to the internet it is a particularly popular dish in Lebanon and Syria. This Middle Eastern dish has a myriad of variations but basically consists of ground meat, bulgur wheat and various flavorings. It may be eaten raw or cooked.”
Basically, it is like middle eastern meatloaf and it is one of my favorite dishes. The spellings and pronunciations are varied, and there are as many recipes for it as there are people that make this dish.
I grew up in Vicksburg which is home to a large Lebanese community. My grandmother’s neighbor would make kibbeh patties as a home business. I can still remember my sister and I fighting over who would get the one or two pine nuts in each piece. My husband’s roommate in law school was from the Mississippi delta and would return to school from weekend trips home with a large bag of his grandmother’s kibbeh. Her recipe was likely very similar to the kibbeh served at a restaurant called The Resthaven in Clarksdale, still in business making this delicious treat. Their version contains plenty of black pepper.
Several months ago, my friend Nora Walker was kind enough to teach me how to make her family’s recipe for stuffed grape leaves called dolmas. She agreed to give me and her grandson, Walker Dowell, a lesson on kibbeh when the weather cooled. Fall finally arrived and Nora and I set a date for my kibbeh cooking lesson.
As I described in my first cooking article about Nora, she is a 90-year-old firecracker who has the energy of a teenager. She is funny, smart, and has bright sparkling eyes that seem to always smile at you. Sittee, as her grandchildren call her, is a delightful person, great cook, and gifted instructor. She knows her recipes and is patient and kind in her corrections as we have been trying to learn to cook her family recipes. (As an aside, I have made her grape leaves several times since her lesson, and they are getting better each time I make them. She made it seem easy and really encouraged me to keep trying.)
Nora’s Baked Kibbeh
Nora has been making Kibbeh for about as long as she can remember. She taught us how to prepare baked Kibbeh but has made and eaten it raw (kibbeh nayee) made it with deer meat, and was telling us that a niece recently used an air fryer with great success to cook it.
Kibbeh is made in three layers. The top and bottom consist of raw meat, spices and bulgur wheat. The middle layer, or called the filling, consists of more ground meat that had been sautéed with spices, and pine nuts.
First, prepare the filling:
Sauté one pound chuck with one chopped onion until meat is completely brown. Add about 1/4 cup of pine nuts to the pan and turn off heat. Season with salt and pepper to taste and a pinch of allspice.
Set aside to cool while you prepare top and bottom layer mixture.
To prepare:
Carefully rinse about 1 1/2 cups #1 bulgur wheat. (To do this, fill the bowl with water and allow the wheat to settle. Carefully pour off just the top of water with any bits of chaff leaving the wheat kernels. Fill the bowl again with room temperature water to about an inch above the wheat and allow to rest about 20 minutes or while you are cooking the filling.)
Once wheat has rested for about 20 minutes drain and carefully squeeze out as much water as possible. Put wheat into a large bowl and mix with 1½ pounds of ground chuck, about a teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper, about 1 teaspoon of dried mint, crushed, and 1½ medium sized onions that have been processed very, very finely in a food processor.
Mix all these ingredients very well and add a little water, if necessary.
In a 9 x 12 pan sprayed with nonstick spray, carefully pat half of the kibbeh mixture into the pan in an even thickness.
Next, spread the kibbeh filling over first layer and spread to an even thickness, and then cover with remaining mixture. Pat down to press meat layers together.
*Nora told us a great trick to be able to get the top layer on without spreading the filling around. Take a scoop of the kibbeh wheat mixture and flatten it in your hand about the size of a thin hamburger patty. Press it on the top layer and then do this with several more until you have covered the pan. Pinch all the pieces together and you have a thin mixture without moving any of the filling.
When ready to cook, score the meat and then pre-cut before baking. Nora’s kibbeh is traditionally served in diamond shapes and the easiest way to do it is to cut 1-inch horizontal strips down the pan and then turn the pan on a diagonal and cut into diamond shapes. Poke a little hole in the middle and pour over 1 – 1½ sticks of melted butter over the top. Bake uncovered on 350° for about an hour.
Allow kibbeh to rest for about five minutes before cutting through the diamonds again. Carefully remove and serve warm.
Nora’s Vinaigrette
Nora always has a surprise recipe up her sleeve when we cook. Her vinaigrette dressing was a delightful addition to our lesson and may have stolen the show from the main event. Nora thinks her dressing is very similar to the lemon vinaigrette served at Doe’s Restaurant even though her recipe came from her family whom ended up in Mississippi via Lebanon, New Orleans and Texas.
Nora was very adamant that the most important thing to remember is to always keep the mixture; two parts fresh lemon juice to one part olive oil.
1 cup of fresh lemon juice
½ cup of olive oil
About 1 teaspoon fresh mint
2 cloves garlic, peeled
About 1 tablespoon dried mint, crushed with your hands
Salt and pepper
In the bottom of a large bowl or in a mortar and pestle, smash together the garlic with about a teaspoon of course kosher salt. Add a little olive oil if necessary but mash this together until garlic has become pulverized.
Add fresh mint and smash to break up leaves. Whisk in lemon juice, olive oil, the crushed dried mint and season with additional salt and pepper. Mix well in the bottom of the bowl.
Top with chopped or shredded iceberg lettuce, some chopped fresh mint, chopped fresh parsley, sliced tomatoes, sliced cucumbers and sliced purple onion. When ready to serve, toss all the ingredients being sure to evenly coat the ingredients with the vinaigrette.
Pam’s Food Processor Kibbeh
As I said, I grew up in Vicksburg and our good family friend, Pam Jabour Mayfield, offered to show me her super quick and easy kibbeh which is made in the food processor. I could not believe how easy it was.
Rinse about three cups of #1 bulgur wheat several times until water runs clear. Drain well after each. For the final rinse, allow wheat to sit in room temperature water for about 15 minutes while you make the filling.
Pam called the filling Hashwa.
In a large sauté pan, cook one chopped onion, 1/2 pound ground chuck and 1/3 cup pine nuts along with salt and pepper and some cinnamon. Set aside to cool.
Meanwhile, in the bowl of the food processor, combine one onion and 1 pound of ground round and 1 pound of ground chuck. Pulse until mixture is finely chopped and has turned a darker color.
Oil a 9 x 12 pan. Mix wheat and food processor meat mixture in a large bowl. Season with a little salt and pepper and divide mixture and a half. Put half in the bottom of the 9 x 12 pan and pat with water.
Top with filling and then top with the second half of the mixture. Cut into diamonds as described before. Pam explained that her mother always put a cross in the middle for blessing on the family.
Bake for 35 minutes uncovered in a 375° oven.
Fried Kibbeh Patties
This is the version of kibbeh that I can remember eating as a child in Vicksburg.
3 cups lean ground beef or lamb or a combination of both
2 cups fine cracked wheat or bulgur wheat
1 large onion, finely chopped in the food processor
1 tsp each: salt, pepper, cinnamon, and ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
About ½ cup pine nuts, slightly toasted
Rinse wheat in a bowl of water several times. Cover and allow to soak in hot water for at least an hour. Drain well and squeeze as much of the water out as possible. Combine wheat, meat, onions and spices. Mix well.
To make patties, take palm size ball of meat and form a small flat oval shaped patty (similar to a small football.) Be sure to insert about 4-5 pine nuts in each patty before frying. Place on a cookie sheet. Continue until all meat mixture is used. Fry the patties in hot oil for about 5 minutes per side. You can also bake in a 370-degree oven for about 30-45 minutes.
Nora and Pam love sharing their traditional family recipes and they love cooking. And I am so thankful to know them and call them my friends and to have been lucky enough to get a real lesson on this delicious food. I just finished a fantastic book by Stanley Tucci called Taste. One of my favorite lines at the end of the book reminds me of these ladies.
“Food not only feeds me, it enriches me. All of me, mind, body, and soul. It is nothing more than everything.
Cook. Smell. Taste. Eat. Drink. Share. Repeat as necessary.”
To Nora, Pam, and the many other cooks that are working hard to preserve favorite family recipes and family heritage through their cooking, Thank you. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for teaching your family. Thank you for teaching me. Our families need to know how to make these delicious recipes and to preserve the smells and taste memories from our past. My son once declared that a dish “tastes like hom.” Now that was a complimen.t Please teach your family what your “home tastes like.”
