Chicken Kibbee

Kibbee is a Lebanese dish that the family enjoys. Usually I make it with lamb mince. I remember our Lebanese neighbours use to get a leg of lamb, remove all the meat and run it through the mincer to make their kibbee. These days the supermarkets stock all varieties of minced meat including beef, lamb, pork and chicken. For a change I decided to use minced chicken.

Kibbee can be served hot or cold. I like to serve it with a tossed salad. I think it needs some sort of a sauce so I usually make a yoghurt based dish to go with it - sometimes yoghurt, a little tahini (a sesame seed paste), some lemon juice and chopped mint, sometimes a mix of yoghurt and drained, grated cucumber with a dash of garlic.

Burghul or bulghur is wheat which has been parboiled, dried and broken up into small pieces. It is also used for making that famous middle eastern salad, tabbouleh.

Chicken Kibbee

1kg minced chicken
2 cup of burghul
2 medium onions
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup toasted pinenuts
2 large tomatoes, skinned and chopped
small bunch parsley, finely chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
30g butter

Place the burghul in a bowl and cover with hot water. Leave to stand for 30 minutes then place it in a sieve and press out any excess moisture.

Place the chicken mince, finely chopped onion, garlic, salt, cinnamon and burghul in a bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands or with a fork.

Press half the mixture into a square oiled baking dish.

Mix together the pinenuts, tomatoes, lemon juice and parsley and pat over the mixture then top with the remaining chicken. Flatten the top and cut diagonally through the meat mixture to form diamonds. Scatter a few small knobs of butter over the top of the dish and bake at 180C for an hour. Allow to stand for 10 minutes before serving.