Chbab rubyan and friends
"It's a labour of love for sure" Noor Murad
It's lucky dip time, and the book chosen by David was Norr Murad's wonderful book Lugma. Honestly you could cook almost anything in this book and it would be delicious.
Alas I won't be cooking this dish (a) because it's prawns and (b) because it's a time consuming dish. And possibly I should include that it has dried limes as one ingredient and so far I have not found a source for them.
So, once again, I almost thought I would chet once more and choose another recipe, but then - first I noted these words at the end of Noor's introduction:
"The final result is pure magic, and reminds me time and time again how some traditions really do deserve to be kept alive."
and secondly I found this brief Instagram video in which she her friend Ixta Belfrage - 'queen of prawns' in her words - make Chbab rubyan together because:
"It’s one of those dishes that you need a whole morning cleared for, and preferably a friend to cook it all with. I love how this video has come together in a very real and unpolished way. It’s exactly as cooking should be; joyful and curious and sometimes a little messy."
Alas the recipe is not online. You will have to buy the book - Lugma - and I hope you have by now, but you will get some tips on how to do some of the processes from the video - particularly the stuffing of the prawn balls.
Cooking with friends. I don't do this ever - except in years gone by on holidays, and even then we tended to leave the one whose turn it was to cook the dinner - alone, or at least as the boss. I also don't ever cook with family - not even David. Not even when we were first married. Very, very occasionally I have cooked with the grandchildren when they were younger as it was something to occupy them, and also a way to teach them how to cook various things. Part of this is because I am not very good at delegating, and I fear I am also not very tolerant. I chop my various vegetables in ways I have developed over the years, and seeing somebody else doing it differently is very hard for me. Which is all very sad really because cooking in a group can be a fun thing. Or not ...
And a dish like this is really an ideal dish to make with friends. A dish that no-one has never made before, and so, like everybody else you are just following a written recipe. It's also a slightly complicated dish - particularly the rolling of the balls. I can imagine that this is not really as easy as it looks in the Instagram video. There's lots of chopping of ingredients, so lots of different tasks for people to do which I imagine would speed up the process somewhat. It could indeed be a fun thing to do when you have an afternoon to spare to experiment in the kitchen. Although as I said, it's not going to happen in this house - mostly because of the unloved prawns.
So what is Chban (sometimes written as Chebeh - and once just kebab) rubyan? I assume that rubyan means prawns in Arabic. For I now realise that I have not said what the dish actually is. Well in Noor's words it's:
"prawn dumplings stuffed with an oniony herby black limey mixture that’s then dropped into this sour tamarind, tomato and prawn broth with loads of chard." Noor Murad
So there are actually three components - the prawn paste/dough, the filling and the broth in which the balls are cooked. It's a dish from the Gulf states of which Bahrain is one - Noor being from Bahrain and the book Lugma being all about the food of Bahrain.
I looked for alternative recipes and really only found two or three more, more than one of which may have actually come from a recipe from Tess Mallos' book The Complete Middle East Cookbook - another classic cookbook really that should be better known, that was written back in 1979. The first photograph below is from the book and the second, which definitely uses her recipe Chebeh rubyan (Prawn balls) is from Cooking the Globe. Then there was also Bahraini shrimp balls (Chebeh rubyan) from Global Table Adventures who preferred theirs unstuffed and whose recipe was used by F1 Cookbook for their Tamarind braised prawn balls. Last of all there is The Chubby Grad who makes Kebab al rubyan (Prawn balls) from a cookbook but doesn't say which one. However, they did say:
"Let’s just say that our shrimp balls ended up more like one big shrimp mess. They completely fell apart while cooking in the sauce, and they looked nothing like the picture in my cookbook where they are dark brown on the outside."
Although they did say that if you can get past the collapse of the balls, it was 'pretty tasty.' They also said that making them was 'a cure for boredom.' They didn't have a picture though. possibly because of them having fallen apart.
As I searched for other examples I also found that Google was also very keen for me to consider a dish called Machboos rubyan - which is a prawn and rice dish - a variant of Bahrain's national dish Machboos which Noor Murad features in her book and for which The Happy Foodie has supplied the recipe online.
As for the variant with prawns the Ottolenghi website has a recipe for Machboos rubyan, acknowledging that it is Noor Murad's recipe. Even better though is a YouTube video of Noor demonstrating how to make Machboos rubyan and then serving it to her colleagues in the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen. Emphasising yet again that food you have made is made to be shared with friends and family. We should do it more.
If you are like me you are probably hestitant about making dishes like this which are not really in your comfort zone. They seem too difficult or they take too much time or you can't find some of the ingredients. And so you don't try at all, or modify it with packaged this and that and so you don't really get the same experience. We should be braver. Remember The Chubby Grad had a disaster when they made their prawn balls, and virtually all of the others did stress that this was not a quick meal. But all of them thought it worth the effort. Even Noor Murad admitted that although she had eaten this dish as a child with her grandmother in Bahrain it was years before she made it herself and was pleased that she was keeping a tradition alive.
Maybe I should keep the tradition alive of British puddings - those you boiled in pudding basins by having a go at one of Delia's recipes for such things. They all look so much better than the stodgy reputation that they have. And I do get bored every now and then.
I should try something I have always shied away from. When I was flipping through my ideas book I see that in 2023 I planned to make various things I had been nervous of making. I made polenta, and pork pies and spaghetti carbonara and have continued to a greater or lesser degree to make them still. But I never had a go at beef wellington pavlova or soufflés. Maybe I should and also think of other things like that - Bouillabaisse? Probably a step too far for David. That elaborate chicken pie from Morocco - bstilla? After all it took me years to have a go at risotto - it always seemed so daunting. Now it is one of my quick and easy meals.
Today I am having a go at making my own ricotta. So far so good. I shall report back.
YEARS GONE BY
October 15
2025 - Nothing
2024 - Nigel's asparagus
2023 - Views, lunch, wine, friends
2022 - Nothing
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
2019 - On spoons
2018 - Vincotto and a recipe
2016 - Nothing
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