Baked kibbeh
A Lebanese bake of spiced beef and bulgur pressed around a savory beef and onion filling, crisp on top and tender inside.
- 90 min total
- 50 min hands-on
- A little more hands-on
- Serves 6
- About $2.44 a serving
- 460 calories
- Good the next day
Dolly says: Make the full amount. It’s just as good for lunch the next day.
Ingredients
For 6 servings.
- 1 cup bulgur
- 2 yellow onions, divided
- 1½ lb 85/15 ground beef, divided
- ⅓ cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
- 1 cup plain yogurt
From your pantry
- ¼ cup olive oil, divided
- 1½ tsp ground cinnamon, divided
- 1½ tsp ground cumin, divided
- 2 tsp salt, divided
- ¾ tsp black pepper, divided
Each serving has about 460 calories, 27 g protein, 25 g carbs and 27 g fat, and costs about $2.44 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No yellow onions? White onions or red onions work.
- No 85/15 ground beef? 90/10 ground beef works.
- No plain yogurt? Plain Greek yogurt works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Cover the bulgur with cold water and soak 20 minutes. it in a fine strainer and press out as much water as you can.
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
Timer: 20 min
While it soaks, dice one onion. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a over medium and cook it 5 minutes, until soft.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Medium heatTimer: 5 min
Add ½ pound of the beef, turn the heat to medium-high, and cook 6 minutes, breaking it up, until no pink is left.
Medium-high heatTimer: 6 min
Food safety: Ground beef, pork and lamb are done at 160°F. When it’s cooked through there’s no pink left anywhere in the pan.
Stir in the walnuts if using, ½ teaspoon each cinnamon, cumin and salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper.
Medium-high heat
Let it cool.
the oven to 400°F and rub a 9x9-inch baking dish with a little oil. the second onion on the large holes of a box grater.
Preheat. Preheating means turning the oven on before you start, so it’s fully hot when the food goes in. Food that starts in a cold oven cooks unevenly and doesn’t brown the same.
How you’ll know: The oven beeps or its light clicks off, usually 10 to 15 minutes after you turn it on.
Grate. Grating means rubbing food across the holes of a grater to make fine shreds or flakes. It spreads cheese, garlic or ginger evenly through a dish so it melts right in.
How you’ll know: Even shreds fall off the back of the grater, and you stop while the piece is still big enough to hold.
Knead the soaked bulgur, the remaining 1 pound beef, grated onion and the rest of the cinnamon, cumin, salt and pepper with wet hands for 3 to 4 minutes, until it forms a smooth paste.
Dolly’s tip: Keep a bowl of cold water nearby and wet your hands often. The paste gets smoother the more you work it.Food safety: Wash your hands, the board and the knife with hot soapy water after touching raw meat, and don’t rinse raw chicken in the sink.
Press half the paste evenly into the dish, then spread the cooked filling over it.
Flatten the rest of the paste into small patties between your wet palms and lay them over the filling, pressing the edges together into a smooth top layer.
Dolly’s tip: Patchwork is fine. Smooth the seams with wet fingers and nobody will know.Score the top into diamonds with a knife, cutting almost to the bottom, and the remaining oil over it.
Drizzle. Drizzling means pouring a thin, slow stream over the top of something. A thin stream spreads a little flavor a long way.
How you’ll know: You see thin lines across the food, not a puddle collecting underneath.
30 to 35 minutes, until the top is deep and crisp and the layers read 160°F.
Bake. Baking means cooking in the oven with dry heat all around the food. It cooks evenly from every side, so you can mostly leave it alone.
How you’ll know: It’s golden on top and passes the recipe’s check, like a clean toothpick or the right temperature.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Timer: 32 min 30 sec
Let it 10 minutes, then cut along the lines and serve with yogurt.
Rest. Resting means letting cooked meat sit for a few minutes before you cut it. It keeps cooking gently, and more of the juice stays in the meat instead of running onto the board.
How you’ll know: Loosely covered with foil, it stays hot, and very little juice runs out when you slice it.
Timer: 10 min
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
