Lebanon / Main
Kibbeh nayyeh
Raw kibbeh: the freshest lamb pounded with bulgur and spices, served under olive oil.
Ingredients
- Fine bulgur120 g
- Freshest lamb, loin or leg, fully trimmed500 g
- Onion1
- Seven-spice mix1 tsp
- Dried mint1 tsp
- Iced water100 ml
- Olive oil, to serve60 ml
- Mint and white onion to serveto taste
- Salt and pepperto taste
Quantities are auto-calculated from the original recipe as a guide. Items without numbers (e.g. “to taste”) are not changed.
Method 5 steps
Soak the bulgur in cold water for ten minutes, drain and squeeze it dry. Chill the bowl — everything for nayyeh must stay cold.
Trim the lamb of fat and silverskin down to clean muscle and cube it. Blitz with the onion to a smooth paste without letting the bowl warm up.
Add the bulgur, spices, mint and salt. Knead, wetting your hands with iced water, until the paste is smooth and glossy.
Spread the paste over a cold plate about a centimetre and a half thick, press grooves with the back of a spoon and pour the olive oil over generously.
Serve at once, with mint leaves, white onion wedges and flatbread. Nayyeh is not kept: leftovers are fried as patties the same evening.
