Ooops! Nadia Sawalha’s kibbe..not a success…

Posted by annauk1 on April 9, 2011
Posted in: Carine Goren, Israeli food, Recipes using mince. 12 Comments
Israeli goodies

My friend Fran, who lives in Israel, has been kind enough to send me a box of foodie goodies, which I’m really excited about – spices, which are either unobtainable, or exorbitantly priced, over here – za’atar, baharat and hawaij.
Vanilla pudding mix, which is used in a few of  Carine Goren’s recipes,  is not really available here in the UK, unless I order online, or buy the American ‘Jello’ brand in the little box, from places with fancy food halls such as Selfridges or House of Fraser.
Fran also included some cute little disposable paper baking cases, some for cupcakes and some larger ones, suitable for making the chocolate pear puddings in Carine’s book. As soon as I can get my hot little hands on some tiny pears, I’ll be making these.

I had some kind of exuberant vision of making kibbe, a suitably Middle-Eastern dish, to kind of celebrate the arrival of my box of goodies, and as a virtual way of saying thank you to Fran for being so kind, but things didn’t work out quite as I’d planned…….

The kibbe are in the bin.

They were overwhelmingly greasy, crumbly and smelt heavily of lamb, which I hasten to add, I usually like the smell of.
My husband took one bite, pulled a face, which looked like he’d just stepped on, or tasted something very unpleasant, put his fork and plate down and refused to eat any more.

Kibbe are supposed to be a dish of layered bulgar wheat mixed with lamb mince and pounded (or processed) to a paste, with added spices, layered with a filling of, again, lamb mince, fried with chopped onions, pine nuts and spices, covered with lots of butter, fried in lots of butter and baked until golden brown.

Baked kibbe

Crumbly kibbe

They sound delicious…I don’t really know where I went wrong….
I should have realised when I was adding butter and more butter, with fatty lamb mince.

Well, as they say, you live and learn.
I don’t think I’ll be in a hurry to make these again.

From Nadia Sawalha’s book ‘Stuffed vine leaves saved my life’.

Marks out of ten?                1.

Would I make them again?             No, unless I found a very different recipe on personal recommendation!

Would I do anything differently?         Can’t really answer my own question, as I’m not making them again.


Have a look at this old 2007 post – Coco, the burlesque wonder cake.

12 comments on “Ooops! Nadia Sawalha’s kibbe..not a success…”

  1. Don't you just hate it when a recipe doesn't turn out right? We all have experience these moments, what bothers me is the waste of ingredients and time! Mariax

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  3. Sorry they went wrong. I do hope that you find another recipe for this dish because it sounds like it has great potential to be a lovely, rich dish.

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  4. this is so funny and tragic at the same time… I did a food writing course with ottolenghi on Friday and one of the examples of bad food witing which he highlighted was a recipe for Kibbe. It was by Anissa Helon and it was really long and overblown and too descriptive… but maybe this is what you need for good Kibbe?

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  7. We have all had some recipes that didn't work out the best. I think it's wonderful that you went to the trouble of blogging about it. I always blog about my success in the kitchen and never the disasters but after reading your post I feel that it's actually quite refreshing to read different kitchen experiences!I hope you find the recipe you are searching for! Nessa.

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  8. it's so annoying when things like this happen but love to hear other bloggers disaster stories, we all have them, makes me feel at one with my blogging friends. it stops us all from being too complacent in our kitchen and makes for a good blog.

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