You Say 'Kubbeh,' I Say 'Kibbeh,' Let's Eat 'Em All Right Now
In his recipe, the dumplings are made of semolina plus a little bulgur. The filling is seasoned ground beef. The kubbeh are cooked in a sour soup.
Camp participant Aviv Raz, 13, is thrilled to make kubbeh.
"My grandma makes kubbeh every Friday," she says. "And all the family, they come, they eat kubbeh, all the cousins. It's great."
Like hummus, kubbeh is one of those dishes that is well loved, with local varieties from Iraq to Egypt.
The kids start by sharpening big knives. They chop onions, garlic and celery for the meat filling.
Raz and her friends brown the beef in a heavy skillet,
Then they chop more celery, chard and zucchini for the soup. While the soup steams and the meat browns, they mix the dough for the dumplings. This is the hardest part to get right because of the semolina, a coarse flour ground from hard durum wheat.
"The semolina ... reacts differently from wheat flour or from rice flour," Shlomi, the chef, explains. "That's why it's more thick than the Asian dumplings that we know. It's soft, but you want to feel it, you know, the texture in your mouth."
He shows the kids how to first, grease their fingers, then roll a bit of dough into a ball, flatten it, put a little meat in the middle then pinch it shut. Raz pats away happily.
Chef Shlomi tastes the broth and calls for more lemon. Raz and her friends gently slide the dumplings into the soup. Finally, the kubbeh and other comfort foods cooked at camp on this day are set out for lunch. Chef Shlomi tries a dumpling.
His verdict?
"The texture of the dough [is] really, really good, soft, like it's supposed to be," he says. "Maybe a little salt in the filling, and a bit more vinegar, lemon."
Raz rates her work tasty, but nothing compared to her grandma's kubbeh.