delicious kibby made by my beautiful sister

kibby is a lebanese dish that sitty makes. it is basically lebanese meatloaf... ground beef (or lamb) with bulgur wheat and spices. you can eat it raw (my absolute favorite... you pour melted butter on top and then eat it with slices of raw onion wrapped in syrian bread) or baked or fried. nobody ever made this as good as sitty until my sister annette decided to take on the challenge. readers, you heard it here first... annette's kibby is better than sitty's (don't tell sitty). she made it for me over christmas and it was the best gift anyone could have given me. here are some pictures.

annette is going to hate me for posting pics of her without makeup all over the internet

raw kibby

this is the filling (ground beef + onions + pine nuts) that goes between two layers of baked kibby

preparing the kibby for baking

it's almost ready to go in the oven

raw kibby (kibby nayye)

1 lb. very lean round steak (95% lean ground beef), ground 2-3 times (your butcher will do this for you)

3/4 c. fine cracked wheat (bulgur)

1 small - medium onion, ground or grated finely

1.5 t. salt

1/2 t. black pepper

1/2 T. ground cinnamon

1/4 t. allspice

soak wheat for 10-15 min in cold water. mix onions and meat together, add spices, mix (you are doing all this mixing with your hands, which you need to regularly dip into icy water to keep them cold). add wheat, mix (with a little cold water if necessary).

annette demonstrates what i want to do with that big lump of raw kibby

kibby stuffing (hashwah)

1 lb. ground lean beef

1 med. onion, finely chopped

2-3 T. butter (i think annette told me that this is too much so maybe less)

1/4 c. pine nuts

1/3 t. black pepper

1 t. salt

fry everything together except pine nuts. add 1/2 c. water if it's too dry and then drain it. add pine nuts.

baked kibby

grease 16 x 10 x 2 pan with 1 T. oil. spread a layer of kibby and then a layer of stuffing over the kibby, and then another layer of kibby (annette says that second layer of kibby is hard to do over the stuffing).

cut the kibby into 5 equal parts lenghtwise and 8 equal parts crosswise, then cut diagonally. pass a knife around the sides of the baking pan to release the kibby. put some little chunks of butter on the top (2 T.). bake for one hour at 350-375. put in the broiler for a few minutes if it's not brown on top.

the finished product

i like to eat my baked kibby with syrian bread and dip it into yogurt. but like i said my favorite is raw kibby. as long as you get the meat freshly ground from a butcher you can trust and make it right away, you will be fine.