Baked pumpkin kibbeh
The Lebanese meatless kibbeh: a golden crust of bulgur and pumpkin baked around a filling of spinach, onion and walnuts, cut into diamonds and served with yogurt.
- 105 min total
- 40 min hands-on
- A little more hands-on
- Serves 6
- About $1.85 a serving
- 430 calories
- Good the next day
- Vegetarian
Dolly says: Make the full amount. It’s just as good for lunch the next day.
Ingredients
For 6 servings.
- 1½ cups bulgur
- 2 yellow onions, 1 finely chopped, 1 grated
- 1 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
- ½ cup walnuts, chopped
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 1 can canned pumpkin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 cup plain yogurt, for serving
From your pantry
- 1 cup water, very hot
- 6 tbsp olive oil, divided
- ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
- 2 tsp salt, divided
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 430 calories, 12 g protein, 51 g carbs and 22 g fat, and costs about $1.85 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 lemons? Limes work.
- No plain yogurt? Plain Greek yogurt works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Put the bulgur in a bowl, pour the hot water over, cover and leave 20 minutes, until soft and the water is absorbed.
Timer: 20 min
Dolly’s tip: Fine bulgur is best here. If yours is medium, give it 10 minutes more and squeeze out any extra water.Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons oil in a over medium heat and cook the onion 6 minutes, until soft and .
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.
Chop. Chopping means cutting food into bite-size pieces that don’t need to be neat. Keep them roughly the same size so everything cooks evenly.
How you’ll know: Your pieces are about half an inch and roughly alike, even if none of them are pretty.
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.
Medium heatTimer: 6 min
Add the spinach, walnuts, pepper flakes and ½ teaspoon salt and cook 3 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice and set the filling aside to cool.
Medium heatTimer: 3 min
the oven to 375°F and rub an 8-inch square baking dish with 1 tablespoon oil.
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.
Add the pumpkin, onion, flour, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, pepper and the rest of the salt to the bulgur and knead with your hands until it holds together like a soft dough.
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.
Dolly’s tip: It should feel like play dough. Too sticky? Work in another spoonful of flour.Press half the dough into the dish in an even layer and spread the filling over it.
Flatten the rest of the dough into small patties between wet palms and lay them over the filling, then smooth the seams with wet fingers.
Dolly’s tip: Wet hands make this much easier and stop the dough from sticking.Cut the top into diamonds with a knife, with the rest of the oil and 40 to 45 minutes, until and at the edges.
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.
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.
Brown. Browning means cooking until the outside turns brown, which is where a lot of savory flavor comes from. Give food room and time without stirring, or it steams and stays gray.
How you’ll know: The food looks brown rather than gray, and the kitchen smells toasty and savory.
Crispy. Crispy means the outside is dry, firm and crunchy. It comes from high heat, a little oil and room in the pan, because crowded food steams and goes soft.
How you’ll know: It sounds crunchy when you tap or bite it, and it doesn’t flop when you lift it.
Timer: 42 min 30 sec
Let it cool 10 minutes, cut along the lines and serve warm with yogurt.
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.
