Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
A typical Wednesday morning in Rio. The sun is just breaking through the morning
clouds and Rio's natives, the Cariocas are already at the beach
Im walking down Ipanema towards Leblon - a quiet and beach
loving neighborhood on the base of the Two Brothers mountain
I'm meeting someone who will show me how to make Kibbeh
just like my gran use to make it
my dad!
Kibbeh is one of the most popular street foods in Rio
Every bar has it. It's a Lebanese import and so are we!
My grandfather came to Brazil in the 1900's and we've been preparing it ever since.
Kibbeh is a two-to-one ratio recipe. It's two parts of meat to one part of bulgur wheat.
but bulgur wheat looks a lot bigger
because it expands when you leave it in the water. And we just left it in the water for
about one hour, otherwise it gets too soft and watery.
We put on
six medium onions
cut in rings
and this is a couple of very big handfuls of mint
nice fresh mint...
You can easily see why this is a family recipe
you can see us around the table when we were 5 or 6 me and my two brothers,
just crunching through all of this.
this is the main spice for Kibbeh. Syrian pepper, we call it here.
It's quite easy to find it in the UK. But if you can't find it you can make..
something similar by grinding white pepper, nutmeg and some cinnamon.
A generous dash of salt..
and back to the mixing madness!
now if you don't have a big grinder in your house,
you get either one of those little ones
clamped to the side of your table,
which is dead handy for this, or...
you can grind all the elements before you put them in, like putting your
onions and spices through the food processor before you add them to the mix and meat
but the important thing is we need really fine ground beef, so you might one to
ask a local butcher to double
mince it for you.
And there we are...
everything mixed up and really smooth
which is exactly what we need
at this point we can make a side dish which is very typical as well called
"Kibbeh Cru" - Raw Kibbeh
Think of it as a Lebanese Steak Tartar
definitely not for everyone's taste but a treasured delicacy for those in the know.
This is a 'Kibbeh Crú'
in Portuguese
Or bṣēniyye, in Arabic
Before we assemble the rest of the Kibbeh
here's some mince meat we set aside to make a filling for it.
All we're doing is flash frying the mince meat
with onions and olive oil and butter.
Next thing.. pine nuts
This is 'Cheiro Verde'. It's parsley and spring onions
just coming to the end of it and we'll sprinkle some of it in
just gonna cook this through, until there's no water at the bottom of it
we want the filling to be quite fluffy and loose.
Now all you have to do is roll it in your hand into a little ball
and use your thumb
to open a hole in the middle
and then put just one table spoon of the filling
and when you put the filling in your can use the spoon to press it in against the Kibbeh
that is already there
and close up
and because the Kibbeh is very smooth
it will close up
quite nicely
and then you can shape it into
this sort of spinning top, or diamond shape
which Kibbeh is famous for
Right, now all we gotta do is fry these little fellas and we have a pan here full of hot oil
and quite a lot of it so these things don't touch the bottom.
and you first put it onto your spatula and lower it into the oil
These take no time at all. Less than 2 minutes.
And you know they are ready because they are nice and golden brown. Like that!
Put them on some paper towels...
and drain some of that fat off.
And now for the ancient art of eating Kibbeh. Come on dad.
And eating most Arab food is a very hands-on experience
And to wash it all down
nothing like a cracking cold beer