The Arab Quarter In The South of France
After 3 years we’ve made it back to France where my husband Dennis works with a research institute each Spring, and I work with musicians and sing my own songs for local dancers and gatherings. So nice to be here after 3 years of sequestering at home. So good to start to spend time with friends at last. Our apartment happens to be next to the Arab quarter, and while exploring there I came upon one of the local little restaurants where I saw a man making some kind of large, thin bread cooked on a hot metal orb with very liquid dough. He also sold little kibbeh, small balls of meat with cracked wheat, a dish which my grandmother used to make. I was intrigued and bought a few. However, all they did was make me miss my grandmother’s — no onion, too much cumin, no pine nuts or raisins or other spices. Sigh. So I continued on to “The Souk de Magreb”.
The place was mobbed with people shopping for the first night of Ramadan. I heard a lot of Arabic from patrons mostly from North African countries and I felt I was in a totally different place. I bought spices and meat and bulgur wheat and went home to make the real thing. Funny to come all the way to France and the first thing I need to cook is middle eastern. But I am also enjoying the incredible produce — Check out these artichokes! Really flavorful too, not just enormous.
Kibbeh can be made in individually shaped pieces.
But it is less complicated and proportionally has less bulgur and less oil per portion made in a large baking dish, so I am including that recipe.
To begin put 2 ½ cups of fine bulgur into a bowl. (Bulgur is cracked wheat, the same kind used to make tabouli salad). Add 2 t. salt and pour enough boiling water to cover it by an inch deeper than the bulgur. Add 2 Tablespoons of olive oil and leave the bulgur to absorb the water. When cool, add an equal volume of ground beef and mix well.
This will be the bottom and top layers of the dish.
Use a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Pyrex works well. Lightly oil the dish and press half of the bulgur and meat mixture into the baking dish making it as thin as necessary to cover the whole bottom of the dish.
Press small amount of the bulgur mixture at a time flattening it in your hands and begin to cover the entire bottom of the dish.
Next make the filling.
Finely chop a large onion and sauté it in olive oil until softened. Add pine nuts and cook until they are a bit toasted. Add spices: cumin, cardamom and cinnamon and salt. Allow the spices to brown for a minute or two, then add the rest of the ground beef and cook, breaking it up as you go.
Once the meat is mostly cooked, add the raisins. If they are large, you can chop the raisins into smaller pieces.
When the meat mixture is cooled, layer it in the baking dish
Begin to cover the filling with the remaining bulgur mixture using your hands to make flat pieces of the mixture and piecing them together.
In the end the whole dish should be covered with the bulgur mixture.
Lightly brush the top with olive oil, then cover the whole thing with foil and bake at 350º for about 1 hour or until you can see the juices bubbling around the sides.
BAKED KIBBEH:
2 ½ c. fine bulgur wheat
2 ½ lb. ground beef, (I like a mixture of chuck and sirloin)
2–3 T. Olive oil, divided
4 t. Sea salt, divided
2 T. cardamom
2 t. cinnamon
2 t. cumin
1 large onion
½ c. pine nuts
½ c. golden raisins, chopped if very large
A 9 inch x 13 inch baking dish
Place the bulgur in a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water an inch above the bulgur. Stir in 2 teaspoons of salt and 1 ½ Tablespoons of olive oil. Allow the bulgur to absorb the water and cool. Stir well. Once fully cooled, mix the bulgur with about 1/3 of the ground meat.
Lightly coat the baking dish with olive oil and press half the bulgur meat mixture into the bottom of the baking dish as shown above, flattening small amounts at a time with your hands and piecing them together until the bottom is fully covered.
Make the filling:
Put 2 T. olive oil into a large skillet and sauté the onion until it softens. Add the pine nuts and continue cooking over medium heat until they begin to brown. Add the remaining 2 t. salt and the spices and cook until the spices brown and release their fragrance. Then add the remaining ground beef and stir, breaking it up as it cooks. When it is mostly cooked, add the raisins and continue cooking until the meat is fully done. As it cools, taste to see that there is enough salt and that you like the spice balance.
When fully cool, cover the bulgur layer in the baking dish with the cooked meat mixture and then make a top layer with the remaining bulgur mixture. Lightly coat the top of the bulgur layer with olive oil and cover the dish with foil.
Bake at 350º for about 1 hour or until the juices are bubbling. Cut into squares to serve.
