I was super excited to cook food for Syria because I'm in love with food from the Middle East and the Levant. I'd probably eat a shoe if you covered it in tahini sauce. I was a little nervous about making kibbeh, though, because the technique is quite similar to making tamales, which is notoriously difficult. I found that it wasn't actually that difficult, thankfully, so I didn't end up super frustrated and I was able to enjoy these fully!
The main ingredient in kibbeh is bulgur, which is similar to couscous in texture and flavor. I had a lot of fun using the google translate camera feature on my bag of bulgur, as you can see above.
Normally, you would mix the bulgur with ground meat. Luckily, I found a blog by an "Arab vegan" who had a recipe for kibbeh made with pumpkin rather than meat. Normally I would not think of pumpkin as a meat substitute, but it makes sense in this context since it's used to bind the bulgur in order to encase the filling. I used steamed acorn squash in my version.
The bulgur (once cooked) is mixed with the pureed squash or pumpkin, some spices, a bit of oil, and in my case an egg (the recipe I used calls for flaxseed as it's a vegan blog).
For the filling, onion and garlic is sauteed with a bit of tomato--the recipe called for chopped tomatoes but I just used a dab of tomato paste because I had it on hand and because I didn't want the filling to be too watery.
Then frozen spinach, chickpeas, chopped toasted walnuts, and more spices are added. I used some za'atar here because I knew the flavors would go great. The recipe called for sumac, which is one of the main ingredients in za'atar. Traditional kibbeh would be made with a meat filling--yes, meat stuffed inside of more meat. The chickpeas are the substitute for that. Pine nuts are also common in place of the walnuts.
Once the filling is done, you take a small handful of the bulgur mixture and flatten it out on your palm. It can get a little sticky as the squash sticks to your hand after shaping a few. I ended up rinsing my hand after every couple kibbeh I made and that worked out alright.
A good sized scoop of filling goes into the middle, and then you squish the outside edge towards the center. It was a little tricky at first, but I found that the bulgur mixture was actually pretty forgiving. A little squishing and patting here and there and you were able to form it into a pretty neat little oval.
Kibbeh comes in various shapes, but I tried going for the "torpedo" or football shape that seems the most popular.
As you can see, I was successful for some, but not all. Doesn't really matter what they look like though. There's also a version of kibbeh that's made in a baking dish, but I thought these were more fun and unique. You can also shape them into balls or patties.
Kibbeh is often deep fried, but I went with a baked option here. Once cooked, the bulgar forms a nice toasty crust. I would imagine frying it would give you a falafel-like consistency (although it may be different if using meat). The filling was great; the proportion of filling to outer layer was actually perfect, which I was worried about. Sometimes I err on the side of not adding enough filling to things like dumplings, for fear of it bursting out. It was much easier to add a heaping spoonful of the mixture for this recipe, though.
And of course, I had to serve it with tahini sauce. My go-to is just tahini mixed with lemon juice, salt, and enough water to thin it out to a nice consistency. I added some more za'atar and some fresh dill for this meal though. The flavors went perfectly together, and while the kibbeh weren't necessarily too dry, it was nice to be able to have something to dip them in.
Overall: 10/10, A+, would make again. Much easier than I thought it was going to be and it made a bunch, so I had leftovers for several days.
Recipes Used: Pumpkin Kibbeh
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