Fried Kibbeh
Torpedoes of bulgur and lean lamb, hollowed by hand, filled with spiced mince and pine nuts, and fried. The hardest thing in the mezze repertoire and the thing everyone judges a cook by.
Photograph credit: Fried kibbeh by TheHungryDudes · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
What to Put on the Table With Fried Kibbeh
- Plain yogurt
- Lemon wedges
- A mint and tomato salad
Photograph credit: Kibbeh. by young shanahan · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
How to Make Fried Kibbeh
Tap a step to highlight it, or turn on Cook Mode for large type and step-by-step focus.
-
Rinse the bulgur, then cover with cold water and leave 15 minutes. Drain and squeeze out every drop — it should be damp, not wet.
-
For the filling, toast the pine nuts in the olive oil until gold and lift out. Fry the onion 5 minutes, add the mince and cook 12 minutes until dry, then stir in the allspice, salt and molasses. Return the nuts and cool completely.
-
For the shell, work the bulgur, twice-minced lamb, grated onion, spices, salt and pepper together, adding the ice water a spoon at a time, until it forms a smooth cohesive paste. Keep it cold.
-
Set a bowl of iced water beside you. Take a golf ball of shell mixture, wet your hands, and hollow it with a wet finger into a thin-walled cup, turning as you go.
-
Put a teaspoon of cold filling inside, close the opening, and roll it between wet palms into a pointed torpedo. Seal every crack.
-
Heat the oil to 175°C / 345°F. Fry in batches of five, 6 to 7 minutes, until deep mahogany and firm.
-
Drain on a rack and serve hot with lemon and yogurt.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
Something wrong or unclear in this recipe? Report a problem with this recipe.
Worth Knowing Before You Cook
Wet your hands before every shell. This is the whole technique.
The filling must be cold, or the shells split.
Seal every crack. Oil gets in through them.
Leftovers
Refrigerated for 3 days; re-crisp at 200°C / 390°F for 10 minutes. They freeze raw and fry from frozen at 165°C / 330°F for 9 minutes.
Questions and Answers
How long does Fried Kibbeh take to make?
1 hour of preparation and 20 minutes of cooking, plus 15 minutes of standing, so allow 1 hour 35 minutes from start to finish. The method also needs time for cooling completely, which it does not time, so treat that as a minimum. The recipe serves 8.
What's in a Serving
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
You Might Also Like
More Lebanese cooking and appetizers ideas from Weekly Delight.
Sambousek
Half-moon pastries of spiced lamb and pine nuts, fried until blistered. The dough is made with oil rather than…
Spinach Fatayer
Triangular spinach pies, sharp with sumac and lemon, sealed so they hold their shape. The filling is never cooked…
Warak Enab
Vine leaves rolled around rice, tomato, parsley and mint, packed tight into a pot and cooked in lemon and oil. The…
Maghmour
Aubergine and chickpeas stewed down in tomato and garlic until everything collapses. Often called Lebanese moussaka…
Shanklish Salad
A dry, sharp, thyme-rolled cheese crumbled over tomato and onion and dressed with oil. Shanklish is aged to the…
Loubieh bi Zeit
Green beans braised soft in tomato and olive oil. Not blanched, not crisp — cooked until they give completely, which…