Potato Chap- بطاطا جاب

Kubbat potato is an appetizer or finger food that is very popular as a street food, and served as a heavy mazza in restaurants and at home. We also serve it as a snack for our guests and sometimes we prepare it for a picnic.

I used potato ricer that works best for this recipe.

Makes 14 discs

3 large baking potatoes 

1 egg

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons cornstarch 

Vegetable oil for frying

Filling:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/2 pound ground beef or lamb

1/2 cup onion,chopped

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon mixed spices, Syrian spice or seven spices

1/2 cup chopped parsley

Put the potatoes in a pot. Add water to cover. Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil.

When the potatoes are cooked, remove from the pot and put aside to cool. Peel the potatoes and cut each in a half.

Mash the potatoes using the potato masher or ricer. When all mashed in a bowl, add the egg, salt and cornstarch. Mix by hand or a wooden spoon to combine.

Prepare the filling ahead to cool before filling the potato. Heat oil in a pan and sauté the onions until soft. Add the meat, salt, and spices and stir. When meat is cooked, set a side to cool. Add the chopped parsley and stir..

Now you are ready to assemble the potato kibbi. Take a small portion of the potato,the size of an egg. Dip your fingers in vegetable oil and roll the potato at make a ball. Make a hole in the middle and stuff the potato with one teaspoon of the meat filling.. Close it and pat it to make a disk.arrange on a plate.

Heat oil in a frying pan. Slide the disks in oil. When it gets toasty, flip the disks to the other side. Remove from  pan and place on a paper towel to absorb the oil. .

When cool, arrange the disks in plastic container for later use.When, ready to serve, arrange the potato  disks on a baking tray and heat in the oven for 15 minutes at 350 degrees F.

You can freeze these disks before frying, but I prefer to fry them, freeze them and reheat them when ready to serve.

enjoy

Fried Rice Kibbi-Kubbat Halab. كبة حلب

Have you thought of what you could do with leftover cooked rice? This is a traditional appetizer recipe that we make with boiled long grain rice, and we add saffron or turmeric to it while rice is boiling to give it a yellow color. We also add golden raisins and almonds to the filling. Sometimes, we add chopped parsley to the filling when cooled.

I was able to alter the recipe a little since I am using leftover rice, and the result was very delicious and successful.

Dough:

3 cups cooked rice, leftover, room temperature

2 eggs

Filling:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

½ pond ground lamb or beef

½ cup onion, chopped

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon Arabian spice (bahar)

¼ cup pine nuts, toasted

2 cups vegetable oil for frying

Heat oil in a sauté pan, and add the meat. Cook the meat for 5 minutes and add the onions, salt and spices and stir. Lower the heat to simmer and cook until onions are soft. Add the pine nuts and set the meat filling aside to cool.

Put rice and one egg in a food processor and process for a few minutes until rice becomes a soft dough. If the rice is still hard, add the second egg and pulse to make nice smooth dough. If dough has a lot of moisture, add cornstarch to the dough and mix.

To form the kubba, or kibbi, have a small bowl with vegetable oil to wet your hand for shaping the bubba.  Take a small piece of the dough the size of small egg. Roll it in your hands and make a hole in the middle to form a cup. Fill the hole with one teaspoon of the filling and seal it. Shape it like a football.

Heat 2 cups of oil in a small deep pot.  Drop 4 kubba in oil, and fry for about 3 minutes. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel.

Serve them with pickles. You can freeze them, and reheat them in the oven when needed to serve.
For a vegetarian filling, saute onions and add peas and chopped mushrooms. Add salt and spices.
Cool before filling the dough. Drain the filling from any liquid.