The Levant and Anatolia · Volume 03, The Pestle, the Pantry and the Mezze Table
Kibbeh Meqliyeh
Aleppo
Illustration
- Time
- 2 hours
- Researched
- 8 sources cited
Meqliyeh means fried. This is the Aleppo kibbeh: a thin shell of beef and bulgur, hollowed with a finger, filled with beef, walnuts and bhar, and shaped into a torpedo before it goes into the oil.
As tradition built it
Makes about 30. About 2 hours.
Ingredients
- 500g extra-lean minced beef, for the shell
- 400g fine bulgur, for the shell
- 1 onion, for the shell
- 2 tsp salt, for the shell
- 2 tsp bhar (Aleppan spice mix), for the shell
- 1 tbsp flour, for the shell
- as needed ice, for the shell
- 350g minced beef, for the filling
- 1 onion, diced, for the filling
- 50g walnuts, chopped, for the filling
- 1 tsp salt, for the filling
- 1 tsp bhar, for the filling
- for deep frying oil
Method
- For the shell, blend the extra-lean beef with the bulgur, onion, salt, bhar and flour, adding ice as needed, until the mixture is a very smooth paste, finer than the kibbeh nayeh mix, that will hold a hollow shell.
- For the filling, sauté the diced onion and walnuts with the second batch of minced beef, season with salt and bhar, and cook through.
- Shape the shell mixture into golf-ball-sized portions, hollow each with the index finger, fill with the meat and walnut mixture, seal and shape into an oval or pointed torpedo.
- Deep-fry at 170°C for 3 to 4 minutes, without crowding the oil, until deeply golden.
Notes
The ratios follow chef Mouna Elkekhia's published Aleppo-style recipe.
What a modern chef changes
The shell's hollow structure, and the fry itself, both treated as the real technique
Rung 1's approximated-jurn discipline, applied to a fried rather than raw form
Method
- Chill the shell mixture properly before shaping, since a warm, soft paste is far harder to hollow and shape cleanly than a well-chilled one; this is the same ice-and-cold-equipment discipline as kibbeh nayeh, applied here for structural rather than food-safety reasons.
- Fry in small, uncrowded batches and hold the oil temperature at a genuine 170°C, checking with a thermometer rather than judging by eye, since a dropped temperature from overcrowding is the single most common reason home-fried kibbeh turns greasy.
- Drain standing up rather than lying flat, so excess oil runs out through the pointed ends.