Baxt UK

Friday, June 06, 2008

Kibe, Quibe, Kibbeh

Living in London, for me and the husband, meant that suddenly we would have to cook our own food. In Brazil we used to live close to my parents, who were always happy if we dropped by to have dinner; once a week the maid would cook for us - most Brazilians have maids everyday - and we went to restaurants a lot.

Here, we were students, penniless and by ourselves.

So I started trying to cook the things I used to eat at my parents' home. One of the first experiments was the quibe (Portuguese spelling), which is massively popular in Brazil, served as deep fried rolls.

My quibe is shaped as a pie and roasted: it's easier to make and healthier.

The recipe:

400g of mince (lamb or beef), an onion, mint leaves, 3 garlics (more or less, depending on how much you like it and if you have a date afterwards), lime juice, half a cup of bulgur wheat (maybe less), olive oil, salt and pepper.

Boil some water (150ml, I guess) and pour over the wheat. Leave it aside for a while.

In a large bowl, mix the mince, lime juice, salt, pepper, wheat (be careful because it can be hot), the chopped onion, garlic and mint.

Pour olive oil on a baking tray (I use a pirex) and place the mix. Dig some furrows on the meat, so it will cook evenly. I usually make it into 6 squares, but you can make more of them. Pour more olive oil over it, and take it to the oven. Cook it in medium-high heat (180 C) for 40 minutes, a bit more or less, and that's it!

Here at home this amount of quibe is enough for two meals for me and my husband.

PS: The quibe (or kibe, or kibbeh) is originally a Lebanese dish. In Brazil we have a massive influence of Lebanese cuisine, but we don't know it: we call all these dishes (kafta, humous, lentil with rice, sfiha and so on) "Arab food". So I had no idea that our main influence was Lebanese until I came to London.

PS2: By the way, one of the biggest fast food chains in Brazil is Habib's - an "Arab food" chain. But I'll talk about that in other post, this one is too long already...

2 Comments:

Blogger mauro pinheiro said...

Please, rephrase that! Most brazilians DON'T have maids! Don't take it for granted that brazilians are at the same social/economic group that we and our friends are! The majority of our people can't afford a maid...maybe you should say "most of my brazilians friends have maids" :-D

For me, I don't have a maid since I left my parents house, almost 8 years ago. :-)

I guess that's why I'm quite OK cooking! But never tried to make quibe...I'm not a carnivore. ;-) Maybe I should try this recipe with a veggie approach! :-D

12:19 pm  
Blogger (required field must not be blank) said...

No maid for me & wife either.

But what led me to comment here was Habib's picture. A very nice touch to the message, and one of the funniest logos I know, if for no other reason than full frontal stereotype.

3:20 pm  

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