Open Faced Kibbeh

So I made an error. I was so hungry/thrilled at having made this dish, I failed to photograph it. I also don't know the legality of taking other people's recipe images and posting them on my site, so I'll just say you should check this video out to get an idea of my kibbeh.

In order to keep you interested until the recipe, I'll post the picture of Luke's Magnum Opus sandwich:

Alongside this picture of Luke:

Which reminds me a lot of this video:

So on to the Kibbeh. Kibbeh is a dish I tasted by chance at Montréal's street-food-famous Boustain's, a lebanese take-out joint that is frequented by drunk college students and club-hoppers, for the most part. In this form, it was a kind of deep fried meatball, stuffed with cinnamon flavored beef and topped with a thin tahini sauce. It was a total party in my mouth, but I kind of left it to Boustain until I stumbled upon Yotam Ottolenghi and his PLETHORA of free recipes on the Guardian's site.

For anyone not familiar (I wasn't until yesterday!), Ottolenghi has penned some pretty hip and beautiful cookbooks of late (namely Plenty and Jerusalem) and he operates two of London-town's hottest restaurants. His "schtick," if you will, seems to be comfort-food from around the globe, but his taste and choices are absolutely unique. Everything he writes about and makes seem at once completely outside of my creative palette, but totally simple. The ingredients are often very few, but every dish ensures a balance of flavors, creating earthy, rich and subtle combinations. 

Ok, so here you have it. I have fallen in love with this guy in a day. And this is really the first recipe of his I tried, but I made it BECAUSE I had so little in my fridge. The fact is, it was so much more satisfying than if I'd gone to a stock pasta sauce, just as filling and it didn't make me feel bloated or heavy. Why? Because rather than pasta I used millet, and rather than heavy sauce with oil I used tahini and lemon, and the meat was minimally seasoned, but CINNAMON and BEEF are a ridiculous combination. sooooo good.

So try this out sometime. It's probably not new to any of my friends from Lebanon or Israel or areas more exposed to this particular type of comfort food (how did I never realize that bitter herbs were so damn comforting?), but to anyone new to flavors like this, it is worth many a return. 

Open Face Kibbeh

Very Loosely adapted from Ottolenghi's recipe

Around a pound of beef (he used lamb)

one onion

two garlic cloves

one green chili

1 cup millet (he used barley)

1 tsp flour

2 tbs lemon

1/2-3/4 cup tahini

1/4-1/2 cup water

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp coriander

salt and pepper

Notes: His recipe is likely much better, but includes pine nuts and other things I didn't have, but check out the video I linked at the top if you want to give it the real college try. 

Preheat oven to 350 F. 

First, sauté the minced onion, chili and garlic until soft on medium heat. Take off the stove and add in the beef until brown, then add back in the onion mix and all the dry spices, plus salt and pepper to taste. 

As this cooks, put the dry millet on the stove o toast slightly, until you can smell it. Then add two cups of water and cover for 15 minutes until soft. Then mix the millet with the flour and salt and pepper.

Take a bread pan and line the bottom of it with the millet, then layer the beef on top. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Mix together the tahini, water and lemon until it's thick but pourable. take the dish out and pour the tahini on top, then bake for another ten minutes. 

Take out and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.