I've decided that the deadline is August 3, 2013, 308 days from today and my 11 year wedding anniversary. The plan is to make the items that are my wife's favorite from the entirety of the challenge, then make Baked Alaska for dessert. It seems like a romantic end to the challenge - and a fitting thanks to my wife for tasting 101 wonderful (but possibly horrible...depending on how they turn out) dishes.
As I wrote the family shopping list for the week last night, I decided that I needed to get this challenge started. As you may remember, I let my wife have the honor of picking the first item to be prepared. She flipped through the magazine (Saveur, October 2012) looking at pictures and said, "That looks good". Pointing to Kibbeh, Beef and Bulgur stuffed meatballs from the Middle East. An interesting choice, seeing that it had no less than 3 ingredients that I have never used before (bulgur, lamb and sumac) and some spices that I didn't even know how to locate (sumac).
Kibbeh consists of an outer shell (fine bulgur, lamb, allspice, cinnamon, salt, pepper, onion) stuffed with a cooked meat mixture (onion, sumac, ground sirloin, allspice, cinnamon, sumac and pine nuts). As a family, we primarily shop at Aldi and I knew that they would more than likely not have many of the items in the recipe in their inventory. I did however have more success at the grocery in my neighborhood where I found ground sirloin patties on sale, lamb steaks and the allspice. After finding those items, the hunt began for sumac. The berry of a shrub found primarily in the Middle East, sumac creates a sour, yet fruity taste in dishes. The majority of my morning was spent in my local Tops, Tops International and Wegmans hunting for this lovely ruby powder. After hunting through aisles of spices, powders, international foods and asking at least 10 employees most of whom had no idea what I was talking about, I walked into Spice Bazaar on the corner of Sheridan and Bailey, stepped up to the counter and asked. Without looking up from the text he was composing, the shopkeeper said, "sure", took two steps to his right and grabbed it off the shelf (and a deal for only $2.99...now to find more recipes with sumac).
Spice Bazaar is now my first phone call when I try the other Asian, Indian or Middle Eastern recipes (tamarind paste anyone?)
I assembled the ingredients in my kitchen, as well as my favorite tools of culinary battle.
I'd like to introduce you to two of my faithful companions that will help see me through this challenge. The 12" cast iron skillet has been with me for the past seven years and has seen plenty of fun, as has the wooden spoon, which I've had long enough for it to have indents where I hold it as I stir. I hope to hand them both off to one of my children someday...probably the worst heirloom ever.
The first few steps of the recipe were pretty standard - saute onions in olive oil, add ground sirloin (I opted for pre-formed patties that I broke apart rather than grinding my own). After the meat was nice and browned, I added in allspice, cinnamon, salt and pepper. As the spices warmed up, the kitchen filled with the most incredible scent. A little like a meaty, savory Christmas...honestly. I'm not sure if it was the allspice or the cinnamon, but it was fantastic.
Once the ground sirloin was finished, I transferred it to a bowl and added the sumac and pine nuts. As a kid, I remember playing in bunches of trees in the fields near my house that we called "sumac trees", and once or twice I had taken a taste of the "sumac berries" having been told that American Indians had made tea or eaten them at a time before this area was settled. I recall a lemony taste, sour with a bit of tartness. While that sumac (staghorn sumac) is not the same sumac I used in the recipe, it is a near cousin. I took a bit to taste and it was not exactly the same, but close. This flavor was much more refined and complex, more tart than sour, with a fruity undertone. Being a former cook and wannabe chef, I am a big fan of tasting not only the ingredients, but also the portions of the recipethroughout the process of cooking a dish and the stuffing was fantastic. The onion had softened nicely and imparted a sweet undertone to the meat mix, while the higher end tart/sour flavors of the sumac complimented the sirloin. There was a nice finish to the bite with the toasted pine nuts as well.
The next step listed was to grind the lamb twice. I used lamb blade chops rather than a lamb roast or loin, so I deboned the chops, then ran them through the food processor (I don't have a grinder and while it is always fun buying new kitchen equipment, I can't see multiple uses for a grinder and I share Alton Brown's view on single use kitchen equipment).
I then ran the bulgur through the food processor because the recipe called for fine bulgur and in my hunt for ingredients, I was only able to locate "bulgur", which didn't look so fine! I then added the chopped onion and spices and as per the recipe kneaded the mixture for about five minutes until it became a pliable, somewhat uniform paste.
Kibbeh, meat stuffed meatballs in essence, require a bit of technique to put together. The recipe made 16 meatballs and it took me at least five to get the hang of the stuffing. One of the primary elements is a bowl of water that I would periodically dip my hands in to keep the mixture moist. I took about 1/4 cup of the lamb mixture and formed a ball, then inserted my index finger into the center and slowly pressed the sides and bottom of the meat ball into a thin walled cup, fixing tears in the walls by wetting my fingers and pressing the sides of the tears together. Sort of like a funky smelling play doh. I filled the hollow that I formed in the lamb with the beef mixture, then pressed the sides edges together while pushing down gently on the filling, sealing the edges with a bit of water. Once I got into a rhythm, the process was kind of calming. The downside of handling raw spiced meat for that long though was that it took a few hours to get the smell out of my hands and lamb fat seems to be very difficult to wash off. It would probably make a good waterproofing agent. I tell you, if my wedding ring fell of once it fell of 10 times.
As I rolled and stuffed I heated six cups of canola oil in a dutch oven. I didn't have the opportunity to purchase a fry thermometer, so I defaulted to a comparison that I knew during my days as a prep cook at Bennigan's. I grabbed a tortilla shell from the fridge, cut it into wedges and put some into the oil when it came close to what I thought would be 375 degrees. Remembering how the tortilla chips I prepped reacted to the oil, when I got close to the approximate cook time that I used to expect (about a minute) I figured the oil was close enough. Working in batches I cooked the kibbeh. I placed 4 of the meatballs into the oil, after two minutes I turned them across the bottom of the oven from left to right, then put 4 additional meatballs in. I cooked the flipped meat for two more minutes, then removed them with a slotted spoon and placed them on a paper towel lined plate to drain.
As per the serving instructions, I plated with yogurt drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkle of sumac. I cut open one of the meatballs to sample and found the first bit fantastic. The tart and semi-sweet filling was a soft texture, mixed in with the bulgar/lamb shell, which had a firmer, almost crunchy texture which was complimented by the sour tang of the yogurt. I had to eat two, just to make sure they were "consistent". From start to end, the entire process took me 2 hours. Because I was not sure of how long the recipe would take me to prepare, I made it during the day knowing that I would refrigerate them and re-heat them for dinner.
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| My Kibbeh |
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| Example from Saveur Magazine |
My wife is my has undertaken a portion of the challenge with me, having agreed to taste every recipe that I make. Growing up, her family of seven were purely meat and potatoes family, every night, without much exception or a whole lot of international influence (save the holiday traditions that her grandparents brought from Eastern Europe). Not that I was an adventurous eater as a kid - the majority of my childhood meals were casseroles that I put into the oven when I got home from school. Heck, I thought everything was cooked for an hour at 350 degrees for the first ten years of my life. My wife also has an aversion to condiments with the exception of BBQ sauce, but I'm sure that will come up over the course of the blog.
I was hesitant with giving my wife the kibbeh (I tried to get the kids to taste them...didn't get far), but served it with peas and brown rice. She enjoyed it, especially the different textures that it involved. She wasn't a huge fan of the yogurt, but on a scale of 1-10, she gave it a 6.5/7. Not too shabby.
A few things that I would do differently for this recipe:
- Use ingredients as they are listed in the recipe - You can see in the comparison pictures of my kibbeh and the magazine picture, that the bulgur is kind of poking out of mine. They look like porcupine balls. If I had used fine bulgur, this may not have happened.
- Don't overcook the meat - I may have overcooked the stuffing. It was not as juicy as I expected it to be and definitely didn't have the same color as the example, which leads me to...
- Buy a fry thermometer - a cook is only as good as the tools that he uses. I may have been frying the kibbeh at 450 degrees for all I know.
- Don't expect the recipe to hold up after re-heating. Don't get me wrong, they are still good (I've been eating them for two days now) and the flavors have only combined more since I made them, but they dry out in the microwave and seem to be missing some sort of sauce.
- I need to find the ingredients for the more complex recipes over the course of a few weeks, rather than spending five hours hunting around Western New York for one ingredient. Of course - now that I have the number for Super Bazaar - it will be my first call every time.
- I need to pace recipes out by "difficulty". I need to complete a recipe every 3 days and I need to make sure I don't get caught with a whole bunch of difficult recipes in at the end, or I won't finish within my given time frame.
One down, one hundred to go.
Next: Senate Bean Soup
My favorite part: "Heck, I thought everything was cooked for an hour at 350 degrees for the first ten years of my life." Haha, yup, we were raised by the same mother :-) Love her.
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