♪ ♪ - Today on Milk Street, we travel to Beirut with our guide and author of the cookbook Feast, Anissa Helou, who shows us how to make kibbeh.

I interview Kamal Mouzawak about the local cooking and foods of Lebanon, and then chef Hussein Hadid demonstrates his very favorite comfort food, Lebanese lentils and rice with crisped onions, also known as mujuddara.

So stay right here with Milk Street as we learn to cook the simple home foods of Beirut, Lebanon.

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♪ ♪ - You can tell where you are in part by how certain recipes are made.

- It's true-- in Lebanon, say, kibbeh.

So kibbeh in Beirut or in the mountains is a mixture of minced lamb and bulgur wheat, plus spices, a bit of onion, and then there are hundreds of way of doing it.

♪ ♪ Welcome.

My mother's name is Larisse.

- Larisse?

- Larisse, yeah.

♪ ♪ So now I'm going to make the lentil kibbeh.

It's actually split red lentils that I'm using, and not brown or green lentils.

- Now, you use these because these break down?

- Yeah, completely.

I will put these to simmer for about half an hour, and in the meantime, I'll weigh a little bit of bulgur wheat.

I'll add it to it.

♪ ♪ When you see it, you might think it's a meat kibbeh, but it's actually completely vegetarian.

I was thinking the other day that you could also, if you're a vegetarian and want to have hamburger, you can make them into patties and have it... - Kibbeh burger.

- Lentil kibbeh burger.

- Didn't I see that chain outside on the street?

Kibbeh Burger?

Okay.

♪ ♪ And the interesting thing about this kibbeh which makes it very tasty is the addition of pepper paste and then tomato paste.

- Okay.

- And this is cumin.

- Yeah, I was going to ask about your spice mix.

There was no cumin in it.

- Cumin is more a taste of Syria or Egypt than a taste of Lebanon.

So we don't use cumin that much.

♪ ♪ - You want to taste one?

- Oh, no, I'm... - (laughs) - Yes.

Should I drizzle with some... - Yes, a little bit.

- Mmm.

There's a little bit of heat, right, from the peppers, but there's real depth of flavor, right?

There's a lot of flavor.

You'd think if you just had lentils and some bulgur, it would be lightly flavored, but it's not.

It's really good.

Delicious.

Let's make some more!

As you do all the work-- maybe I should do the work.

You should go sit down.

- No, I think I'll get my mother to help.

- Okay.

(they laugh) ♪ ♪ So today at Milk Street, we're going to make kibbeh.

You just watched Anissa Helou and her mother make it.

Now, she does a vegetarian version, which is bulgur and not with minced meat, like lamb or beef, but it's with lentils, which is obviously uncooked, which is actually quite good.

But we're going to do it with meat.

It's one of those recipes that's different in every household, probably, throughout the Middle East.

So our kibbeh starts with?

- Onion-- yes.

- Onion, okay, here we go.

Now, here's the thing.

We're going to use the onion liquid from having grated it to moisturize and soften the bulgur.

We're using the large holes of the grater, whole onion, peeled.

You can half it if it's, you know, too large in your hand, but you want to keep the root end intact, which helps it hold together while you're grating it.

So you've just got to stand back a little.

There's a lot of... - You just got moisturized.

- There's some splashage.

And you can see the onion is finely grated, so you don't have to mince it, which is nice.

And you get a lot of liquid from it, which adds a lot of flavor.

Okay, I think we're good.

Okay, so now we've got this grated onion with a lot of liquid in it, and that's what we're going to use to soften the bulgur.

Now, bulgur is basically, as you know, the cracked wheat berry, pre-cooked a little bit, and then dried again, so it's ready to go when you're ready to cook the recipe.

- So of the many things in life that annoy me, this really annoys me, is, you go to the supermarket, and it's hard to know whether it's fine or not.

They don't say "Fine Bulgur" on the package half the time.

- Right.

- Especially if it's in a bulk bin.

So it's really, really tiny pieces, right?

- Exactly.

- Okay.

- I mean, here we have two different bulgurs.

We have a fine grind, which is what we want for the kibbeh, and the coarse grind.

And you can see how it's larger pieces, and harder.

That's not going to soften enough in this.

So we're using the fine grind.

We're adding a half a cup of the bulgur to the liquids and to the onion.

Two teaspoons of salt.

We're going to add that in at this point, which adds even more flavor.

All right, so the bulgur's mixed in with the onions and the juices.

We're going to set this aside for about ten minutes to soften.

The salt is in there, as well, so that's going to add flavor to the whole mixture.

While that sits and softens, we're going to toast the pine nuts.

- Okay.

- You turned the skillet on already.

It's nice and hot.

So that was a quarter-cup of pine nuts.

You just let them sit and toast until they get nutty brown.

- When they start to turn brown, they go fast.

- They go fast.

- Like, in 30 seconds... - Do not walk away.

- Do not walk away, right.

♪ ♪ - So our pine nuts have toasted and cooled, so we can chop them now.

We want them about as fine as the bulgur is, so they aren't too chunky.

I'm just going to give them a coarse chop here to start.

The nice thing about chopping pine nuts is, they're soft, so they don't pop all over the place, you know, like almonds can.

Okay, this looks good.

So we're going to add the pine nuts to the kibbeh mixture so far, which we have in here-- the bulgur and the onion and the salt from earlier.

And then we start adding all the incredible flavors in this.

We have grated garlic.

This is two-thirds of the six cloves that are total in the recipe.

Then we have three-quarters of a teaspoon allspice, three-quarters of a teaspoon cardamom, and three-quarters of a teaspoon cinnamon, so nice and even.

Teaspoon of ground black pepper and a quarter-teaspoon of ground cayenne.

And one egg, which helps bind it and hold it all together.

And we're going to use ground beef today.

You certainly could use lamb if you want, which is very traditional.

But we have an 85% lean ground beef, which means it's 15% fat in there, which is basically what chuck is, ground chuck.

And this will give a lot of flavor to the kibbeh.

The fat in the meat will eventually be absorbed by the bulgur, as well, and just make the whole thing taste amazing.

So I'm using my hands just because I get impatient with the spoon.

This is the best way, I think, to blend.

You don't have to worry about overmixing it.

It doesn't have any effect on this, okay?

So this needs to refrigerate and sit for about 20 minutes, keep cold, let the flavors get absorbed, and then fry it up.

Our beef kibbeh mixture's ready.

It's been sitting in the fridge for 20 minutes.

And before we cook it, we're going to make a very quick yogurt sauce that goes with it.

One cup of full-fat yogurt, and then we're going to add a quarter-cup of tahini.

So you've got this tahini-yogurt-tasting sauce.

This was a cup of parsley leaves which are chopped.

Half a teaspoon salt, quarter-teaspoon of black pepper, and the rest of the garlic that we had grated earlier.

This is about one-third of the total mixture.

You're going to mix that up, and voilà, that's it.

- Hmm.

- That's pretty easy, right?

So we're going to set that aside for a little bit, and start shaping the kibbeh.

This is the fun part.

We have a scoop here.

We're going to make 12 balls total.

It's about three tablespoons per, per ball.

This just helps to get them all about the same size, so they cook evenly.

So once we've shaped the balls, we need to flatten them into patties.

Would you be willing to do that?

- Oh, you want... - Are my hands clean?

- Yes!

Okay.

Those are lovely little patties.

- Yes.

Okay, you got them all nicely patted?

Now we're just going to wash our hands before we cook them.

Okay, so we're going to turn the heat on about medium, and we have four tablespoons of oil total if you'd add half of that.

Because we're going to cook half of these at a time.

Great-- we'll let that get hot.

When you see it get sort of shimmery, it'll be time to cook.

That's looking good.

Put them in.

We'll fry half the kibbeh first, because that's all that will fit in the skillet.

You don't want to crowd them too much.

And then we'll wipe the skillet out, add a little bit more oil, and do the other half.

And that's about four minutes per side.

(sizzling) So let's take a look.

Ah, yes, lovely.

So you have a nice golden toastiness to them.

I need about three to four minutes on the other side, and you'll be ready to serve.

- Okay.

- Okay.

May I?

Okay, the best part is here, finally.

So a couple of kibbeh.

Maybe a little wedge of lemon.

A little yogurt.

And I will serve you a little pita.

- Okay.

And these are actually the perfect size to make little pita sandwiches if you want.

You know, the yogurt and the lemon are sort of really just there, and they're delicious.

But the kibbeh by itself is also so good.

- This is really... you know, when she made them, they were raw, because it was lentils, not meat.

And those were also very good, because they used a lot of spices, and I was thinking, like, this is going to be a spice blast, but it's fairly subtle.

I mean, that's one great thing about Middle Eastern cooking, is, they use spices, but it tends to be on the subtle side.

So there's a foundation of spice, it's not overpowering.

You know, one of the great things about going to Lebanon was the combination of a little bit of meat, but a lot of vegetables and grains and salads.

And the same is true, of course, of kibbeh, because you have bulgur in it along with the beef and the spices and the onion and the pine nuts.

So it's lighter food.

Has great flavor, but it's lighter food.

And kibbeh is the perfect thing.

You could make it Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and leftovers, of course, are terrific, as well.

So kibbeh from the Middle East, a great way to use a little bit of meat with bulgur and spices.

Delicious.

♪ ♪ You just want to make sure I eat this... ♪ ♪ Kamal, thank you for having us.

- Hello, sir, hello-- welcome.

- Tell us where we are.

What is the place, and what are you doing here?

- We are in Tawlet.

Tawlet is what you call a farmers' kitchen, as there's a farmers' market, it's called Souk el Tayeb, that I founded in 2004.

So later on, in 2009, it was, like, why do we have only to bring the farmer from rural to urban with their own produce?

Because it's the producers own the market.

Why can't we enjoy a step further, to which is transforming the produce into a cuisine?

So why can't we bring the cook from rural or from different regions of Lebanon to one place, to a community kitchen, in Beirut?

So this is the kitchen.

Every day, there's a different woman from a different region who would come and cook a buffet of her own food.

It's like going to this woman at her own house and eating lunch with her.

But instead of all of us going to all of the regions every day, it's one different woman who would come to this kitchen every day.

It's a home cook.

It's regional traditional cuisine.

- You're talking about food as being sort of the essence of a culture-- it's what you take with you, it's what you export to other places.

Obviously, Lebanon's had a tough time politically.

Do you think the food in Lebanon is capable of bringing people back together?

- It's the slogan of our organization, Souk el Tayeb, is, "Make food, not war."

And I definitely know that, you know, it's not with a bowl of tabouli that I'm going to go on a war front and end a war, so it is not the idea of ending a war.

It's the idea of, how can we find a common ground for people to look for similarities beyond their differences?

♪ ♪ - We're going to go home today.

♪ ♪ We're going to do what they call mdardara, which is a rice and lentil combination.

We have red lentils, know, and they cook quite, quite fast.

♪ ♪ (sizzling) So I'm going to take a bit of the lentils and the rice, add the scallions to that, just to give it a bit of color.

- I notice when you cook sometimes, you add a little bit of something, and then you just put the whole bowl in.

- I like to be generous with my food.

Generosity is important in cooking.

- That's true.

♪ ♪ - Et voilà.

It's a very simple dish.

Not at all expensive, but you give it... you give it soul.

- Mmm.

Still has texture to it.

The lentils aren't blown out.

Onions are great, I love the rice.

- We're going to try it a bit with a bit of yogurt.

- Okay, so this is how your kids like it?

- Actually, in the Middle East, I think we all like yogurt with our dish.

♪ ♪ - Mmm.

This yogurt's very different than what we buy in the supermarket.

- This yogurt has a bit of garlic and a bit of olive oil to it.

- Oh.

- Give it a bit of flavor and a bit of seasoning, actually, a bit of salt, so that it gives it a bit of an oomph.

- Excellent-- this is really terrific.

- Thank you.

- And when you come to Boston...

I don't know what I'm going to cook, but I'll, I'll cook you some Thai food-- how about that?

- Very good.

Thank you, thank you.

- (laughs): Okay.

♪ ♪ You know, when we got to Beirut, not to be corny, but it was a tale of two cities.

You see pockmarked buildings, obviously, after the long civil war, which ended in the '90s.

And there's all sorts of different kinds of people there, all of them extremely nice and hospitable.

But we visited Mohammed, he's a caterer and also a chef, co-owner of a restaurant, as well.

So he taught us how to make a lot of home-style dishes like mujadarra, or he calls it mdardara.

which is lentils and rice with crispy fried onions on top.

Very easy to put together.

He has two young kids who absolutely love this dish.

And it turns out it is now my go-to recipe at home, as well, and yours, probably, shortly.

- That's right.

In fact, I think he said it's sort of like the Beirut version of macaroni and cheese.

All the kids want to eat it when they come home from school.

So it's really simple, but it has a ton of flavor.

And one of the ways that we're going to add a lot of that flavor is by seasoning the cooking liquid for our lentils and rice.

So we're going to start with five cups of water.

And to that, I'm going to add four cloves of garlic.

Four bay leaves, two-and-a-half teaspoons of cumin, a half a teaspoon of allspice.

A tablespoon of salt, and a teaspoon of black pepper.

So I'm just going to turn this on over a high heat and bring that to a boil before we add the lentils.

- Before we do that, one thing.

This is seasoning the cooking liquid for pulses-- lentils or beans... - Yeah.

- Which is a great technique.

Anytime you cook beans or pulses, lentils, Season the liquid, and that infuses the flavor into the beans as they cook.

So there are four kinds of lentils.

There's yellow lentils, red lentils, dal, which you would use in Indian cooking, and it purées really into very soft, sort of a mush very quickly.

Green lentils, lentilles du Puy from France.

These usually are our first choice, because they take a little longer to cook, but they maintain that al dente sort of toothsomeness that we like, especially in a lentil salad.

These are brown lentils.

They're little bit larger, they'll cook faster.

And when they cook, they'll end up having a little bit of texture, but similar to the rice.

So we like the brown lentils with the rice.

- That's right, if you wouldn't mind... - And would you like the bowl?

- Thank you.

So the water is boiling.

I'm going to drop these lentils in.

I'm going to cover it.

Reduce the heat to medium.

You want to kind of maintain a gentle simmer here.

And that's going to go for about ten minutes.

So we've given our lentils about a ten-minute head start on the rice.

They take a little bit longer to cook than the rice.

So now we're going to add our rice.

This is a cup of basmati rice.

We've rinsed it and drained it, that's going to go in here.

If you would put the cover back on that.

And I'm just going to reduce this to medium low-heat.

And we're going to let that simmer for about 25 minutes.

While that's simmering, we're going to get started on our crispy onions.

So I'm going to slice some onions over here.

If you wouldn't mind getting that skillet heated up with... that's a third of a cup of extra virgin olive oil.

That's where we're going to fry these onions.

And so these are different than caramelized onions.

They're really nice and crispy, and very, very brown, almost to the point where you might think that you've taken them too far.

But we actually want the bitterness from the onion in this dish-- it's a really nice balance to the earthiness of the rice and the lentils.

So we've got two onions that we've sliced.

(sizzling) So these are just going to brown for about 15 minutes or so.

And you'll see they're going to start to get really brown around the edges.

Once that starts to happen, you do want to start stirring, so that they brown evenly.

- So this is a great sort of master recipe.

Caramelized onions-- couple of onions, half a cup of oil, third a cup of oil, cook them for 15 minutes.

You can put them on your eggs in the morning.

You can put them on anything you want.

Just an all-purpose recipe you should have in your repertoire.

♪ ♪ - So, Chris, you can see these have gotten really nice and caramelized.

In some parts, they're pretty dark.

That's actually what we want.

That's going to give us that bitter flavor.

So I'm just going to take these out with a slotted spoon.

- Here, I could do something.

- Oh, look, how helpful.

- Look at that, yeah, how nice.

- And you want to put these on a paper towel-lined plate that'll soak up any of the excess oil that's left.

I'm just going to season it with a little bit of salt.

These are going to continue to crisp up as they sit.

So while we wait for our rice and lentils to get tender, they'll get a little more crispy.

So we'll be back when those are ready, and we'll put everything together.

♪ ♪ So Chris, when the rice and the lentils were tender, I took the cover off, and I added a kitchen towel and then recovered it.

So that's going to allow that to continue to steam a little bit without any moisture dripping on the top that might make it gummy.

All right.

I feel like a magician revealing... - Well, go ahead.

- Ta-da!

First I'm going to take the bay leaves out so we don't eat those.

Then I'm just going to fluff the rice with a fork.

All right.

We've got a bunch of scallions that we just sliced up.

So I'm going to take half of that bunch and put that in now.

Stir that in.

Going to transfer this, because we're civilized, into a nice serving bowl.

- Mmm.

- You know, you can smell all of those spices that we put into that cooking liquid.

So now I'm going to top it with the rest of those scallions.

And then we're going to top it with those crispy onions.

This is a super-simple dish, but I feel like people should be, will be surprised at how much flavor is in this.

- Now, that looks great, yeah, there you go, yeah.

- Nice hearty portion of onions, right?

- Would you like yogurt on yours, too?

- Absolutely.

- Mmm.

You know, lentils and rice are just a perfect combination, because the lentils are earthy, the rice has that great texture, and then the onions on top are just fabulous.

- I know-- this is definitely one I'm going to keep in my repertoire.

- So one could make mac and cheese on a Monday night, or, if you were in the Middle East, you might make this.

You might make lentils with rice with fried onions on top, with maybe a little bit of yogurt-- great texture, great flavor.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

And I would rush to get this recipe.

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- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- Ferguson's proud to support Milk Street and culinary crusaders everywhere.

For more information on our extensive collection of kitchen products, we're on the web at fergusonshowrooms.com.

- For 25 years, Consumer Cellular has been offering no-contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like.

Our U.S.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you.

To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv.

- Since 1899, my family has shared our passion for everything that goes into our Mutti 100% Italian tomatoes.

Only tomatoes.

Only Mutti.

- Designed by cooks for cooks for over 100 years.

Cookware collection by Regal Ware.

Handcrafted in Wisconsin.

- The AccuSharp knife and tool sharpener, designed to safely sharpen knives in seconds.

AccuSharp: Keep your edge.

♪ ♪