Showing posts with label
My Recipes Made By Fellow Bloggers.
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Showing posts with label
My Recipes Made By Fellow Bloggers.
Show all posts
The theme for Refugee Week for 2016 is Welcome. Refugee Week is a collective acknowledgement across the world to raise awareness of the plight of refugees and asylum seekers across the world. As my blog is a vegetarian food blog my Simple Act was to Cook A Dish from Another Country and try and raise some awareness that way among some of my readers.
Kibbeh is a popular dish from the Middle East, especially in Aleppo in Syria. It is made from bulgar wheat, meat, onions, spices and then deep fried. It often comes in torpedo shape croquettes which I have yet to master and many variations. In Aleppo, Syria there are many varieties including those made with vegetables. Some of you may remember me mentioning a Middle Eastern cookbook I found at my local library a little while back called Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa (2000) by Habeeb Salloum which shared a a number of Kibber recipes, including one made with Pumpkin.
Kibbeh is the national dish of many countries in the Middle East where refugees have fled from such as Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria respectively. In 2011, an estimated 9 million Syrians were forced to flee their homes because of the outbreak of the Civil War. This is perhaps the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War.
The first time I heard of kibbeh was from a Scottish mature student at the University. It was in her home on the Southside of Glasgow when she cooked for me that I was introduced to kibbeh and tabbouleh, tabbouli. She told me she was of Armenian diaspora. She said her family had come into the UK after the Second World War. I was completely fascinated as I knew nothing about the Armenian people. We do forget how many people around us have refugee heritage and ancestry, even the UKIP leader Nigel Farage's ancestors were refugees from Huguenot background fleeing to England from France to escape religious persecution (The Guardian, May 10 2013). Some of us are able to assimilate and change our names because of our skin colour. Some of us who have been in this country for decades, born and bred will always be seen as immigrants; 'the Other' because of our skin colour.
Anyway, it was only after graduating from University that I attempted to make Kibbeh from scratch , I have to admit I was not happy with the final dish, it was gritty. Hence, I am glad to be given the excuse through Refugee Week to make it again. It was much lovelier this time. Its very much like a falafel that you stuff it in a pitta bread and munch. Enjoy! I am sharing this recipe with Cook Once Eat Twice hosted by Searching for Spice; and Utterly Scrummy for the No Waste Food Challenge run by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary.
I have a number of vegetarian and non-vegetarian Middle Eastern cookbooks on my burgeoning bookshelf. The most cherished and celebrated perhaps are those by: Nada Saleh, Arto der Haroutunian, Claudia Roden, Greg and Lucy Malouf amongst a handful of others.
Anyway, the one Middle Eastern recipe that I've had bookmarked is not from a cook book, but a blog called Bottom of the Pot. In fact I have had this Persian recipe for Spring Fava Bean (Broad Beans), Dill and Egg Stew known as Baghali Ghatogh bookmarked for over two year ago. I was greedily reminded of it when I was at the library and was flicking through Sabrina Gayour cookbook Persiana. My version is visually probably more closer to Sabrina's as I was cautious with the dill, but the recipe I followed and adapted a little was definitely from Bottom of the Pot. Dill is not a herb I use much in my cooking and was nervous about overpowering the dish with a herb that I am not overly fussed about.
One of the reasons this recipe was on the back burner was that I was waiting for the broad beans season. Well fortunately for me, I had picked up some broad beans from a rural market, but it was not enough for this recipe, so I decided to substituted it with some dried butter beans, which I soaked overnight and then cooked.
