Passport & Plate - Kilted Kibbeh w. Tatties and Whisky Mushroom Sauce
Lebanon | Sunday, March 1, 2015 | 5 photos
Ingredients
Kibbeh Outer Sheels:
1 ½ cups fine bulgur wheat
750g ground beef
2 finely chopped onions
3 tsp ground cumin
2 ½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp ground black pepper
Kibbeh Stuffing:
250g ground beef
1 finely chopped onion
½ cup pine nuts, lightly toasted (optional)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground allspice (or more to taste)
½ teaspoon ground pepper
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon (or more to taste)
Vegetable, canola or corn oil, for deep frying
Whisky Mushroom Sauce:
Around 3 or 4 handfuls of mushrooms, chopped
Around 75g salted butter
50 – 100ml whisky, to taste
Around 100ml double cream
My Mum's Mashed Potatoes:
5 -7, good mashing potatoes, or as many as seems appropriate
Around 75 – 100g butter
Around 75 ml double cream
Salt and freshly gound black pepper to taste
A decent amount of grated nutmeg
How to prepare this recipeKibbeh shells: Soak the bulgur wheat in warm water (20 mins). Drain thoroughly in a sieve. In a large bowl, blend the beef, onions, cumin, salt, and pepper to a paste. Add the bulgur wheat and mix until reasonably pliable.
Stuffing: Brown the ground beef, about 4 minutes. Add the onions, salt, allspice, pepper, and cinnamon, and cook, stirring, until tender, about 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and optionally add the pine nuts. Leave until cool enough to handle.
Kibbeh: With wet hands, make an egg-sized ball from the outer shell mixture. Make a hole in the ball with your thumb, making a cup. Mould the ball around your thumb a bit, so that it is longer and deeper. If the shell is falling apart, re-wet your hands and try again. Stuff each ball with about 1 tablespoon of stuffing, lightly pressing down to the bottom of the well. Press down on the sides and top to enclose the filling and reshape into a smooth egg with a pointed top. Repeat. Heat the oil for deep-frying, and in batches of 4 or 5, add the balls and cook until golden brown / the meat is cooked through, about 4 minutes. Mine were quite large, and 5 minutes was too much, so maybe 3 minutes is fine. Remove and drain.
Sauce: Melt the butter in the pan in which you cooked the mince. Once it is hot, add the mushrooms, and reduce the heat until they absorb most of the butter. Add the whisky, stir in, and flambé. Allow the sauce to reduce dramatically, over a low heat, and add the cream. If the pan is too hot, the cream may curdle, so make sure that the heat is low. Stir in, allow it to cook and infuse a little more, and serve with the kibbeh and mash.
Mum's Mashed Potatoes: Peel and boil the potatoes, drain and remove from heat. Mash with a masher or ricer while they are still pretty hot. Add small slices of the butter throughout the potato, as with the cream and seasoning – you don’t want to stir it or handle it too much, this will make it less fluffly. Grate an extra bit of nutmeg on top to serve.
The story behind this recipeI've been living in Beirut since September, studying Arabic on my year abroad from Durham University in Britain. As a way of expanding my cooking experience and keeping in touch with friends and family, I started a cooking website called haggisandhummus.com, where I try to mash-up Scottish and Lebanese cuisine. It's been a wonderful experiment, usually yielding the delicious results, and always fun. This dish was a particular success.
I cooked the Kilted Kibbeh shortly before Christmas, for a few friends. It was my first long time away from home, and my first Christmas away. Perhaps with slight guilt, I was - and continue - to absolutely love it here, and not miss Blighty too much. The dish reflects the Winter "meat-and-potatoes" craving, my Mum's technique for mashed potatoes (although hers are still superior) and a nice clash of Lebanon and Scotland.
Basically, this dish reminds me of that particularly happy couple of weeks away from the incessant gift-buying and card-writing that have become synonymous with Western Christmas, but managing to keep the aspects of fun, eating, and socialising with smashing food and great company. And Lebanese wine. Plenty of Lebanese wine.
