Passport & Plate - Shish Barak
Jordan | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 5 photos
Ingredients
Shish Barak
For the Shish Barak dumplings:
2 cups flour
500 g coarsely ground beef
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1 pinch of cinnamon
For the Sauce ( cooked yogurt)
1 kg yogurt
3 tablespoons starch, dissolved in ½ cup water
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons fresh coriander, chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
How to prepare this recipe1. To prepare the dough: sift the flour in a bowl with some salt. Gradually add water and knead to obtain a soft dough. Cover the dough with a plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for 30 min.
2. To prepare the filling: on high heat, fry the chopped onion in a skillet with the vegetable oil until golden. Add the ground meat, cinnamon, pepper and salt and fry until the meat turns brown. Set aside to cool.
3. Preheat the oven to 180 °C.
4. To make the shish barak dumplings: on a lightly floured surface, roll the dough using a rolling pin. Cut the dough into 4 cm circles.
5. Place 1 teaspoon of filling at the centre of each circle and fold in half. Press edges together then bring both corners together to obtain a dumpling. Seal well.
6. Put all the meat dumplings in a well-greased baking tray and bake for 10 min or until blushed. Remove from oven and set aside.
7. To prepare the sauce: strain the yogurt into a pot, add the dissolved starch and place over medium heat. Stir continuously in a circular movement until yogurt thickens then reduce the heat. It is very important to stir continuously for the yogurt not to stick to the pot.
8. In a small skillet, fry the minced garlic and fresh coriander with the vegetable oil and add them to the yogurt. Mix well and turn off the heat.
9. To serve, place the shish barak dumplings in a serving dish and pour the yogurt sauce in another deep dish. It is customary to serve vermicelli rice along with it. In each individual plate, place a serving of rice and shish barak dumplings and cover with yogurt sauce.
10. This serving method is recommended to preserve the crunchiness of the shish barak. Another way to serve it is to add the shish barak dumplings to the yogurt sauce before serving, in which case it will lose its crunchiness.
The story behind this recipeStory behind the recipe
“Przepraszam” I stressed out the letters as I stopped the second polish person in Biedronka to ask about the proper cooking yogurt in order to prepare Shish Barak. Yes, Shish barak in Poland! And to add to the randomness of the event, a Spanish guy helped me prepare it. To explain to you this multi-cultural mission I must go back to the morning of the same day.
It was during my European Voluntary Service in Leszno, Poland on a cold January morning when I rushed to prepare traditional food for my cultural evening. I must admit, although I’m passionate about food, I’m not the best cook out there and chances of finding the right ingredients were little. But with the help of my Spanish friend; who happens to be one of the volunteers and a great cook; what I dreaded doing suddenly turned into a spiced up adventure. We went to Biedronka; Japka and lidl, I followed him like an eager student and felt confident about his skills. We bought chickpeas for humous, and the list of things needed. We rushed into the kitchen and started improvising with the tools we had, crushing chickpeas with a wine opener and adding brown flour instead of white for the shish barak. It was going smoothly until I took a glance at the wall clock and realized we only had an hour to go when suddenly the door bell rings and turns out Hita is supposed to tutor a girl in Spanish. It was this moment when I started to panic, the yogurt turned into a sticky monster when i added starch and I had to run back to Biedronka to pick up more yogurt. I thought this is the end of it but as soon as I got back to the kitchen; everything miraculously worked out! I did it correctly, we put the stuffing inside the dough, the sauce was ready and the humous too! But of course we were met with the disappointments of real life like being late for half an hour and failing to prepare Arabic coffee which is the most basic thing among all of the other stuff. But surely it's a cooking adventure I won't forget!
