Arabs invented algebra and hamburgers

Kibbeh is a very common middle-eastern dish. I have a version that my mother got ages ago from one of my dad’s friends from Syria.

½ kilo ground beef or lamb
½ kilo cracked wheat
1 medium onion
1 t salt
½ t allspice

Wash cracked wheat and squeeze out water. Mix with the rest listed above and put thru a meat grinder at least four times until it’s smooth. Dip hands in ice water to keep meat smooth and easy to handle.

14 oz. lamb or beef
2 medium onions
¾ c pine nuts
1 t salt
¼ t pepper
¼ t cinnamon

To make filling, sauté pine nuts til brown in a little butter, add the onions, meat, and seasoning, sauté and mix together with pine nuts.

Butter a baking pan and pat ½ in thick layer of the first meat mixture on the bottom. Spread filling mix over. Place second layer of meat over, pat down and smooth top. Score with a  diamond pattern and shove a finger hole down the middle of each diamond. Run a knife around the edge of the pan. Melt 1 cup butter or ghee and pour down sides and across surface. Bake til brown.


To my shock, I also ran into a version in a vintage cookbook, Made-Over Dishes by Mrs. S.T. Rorer, undated, but I think at least 1920s or earlier. I’m just surprised that middle-eastern cooking would have made enough of an inroad to be this mainstream back then.

Kibbee

Chop uncooked tough meat very fine; put it twice through a grinder. To each pound, allow a tablespoonful of grated onion, a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a teaspoonful of salt, just a dash of pepper, and a half cup of toasted pinon nuts. Form into balls about the size of an egg, stand in a baking pan, add a half pint of strained tomatoes, a tablespoonful of butter, and bake slowly thirty minutes, basting three or four times. If more than one pound of meat is used, all the ingredients must be increased accordingly.