Lucky dip - Kubbeh hamusta

"A recipe that adapts to its environment, but never forgets where it came from." Elli Benaiah/Beyond Babylon

There are so many tricky and just picky issues about this particular recipe. It comes from Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi's book Jerusalem - a word that evokes a whole range of emotions these days - mostly not good.

Although Sami Tamimi - a Palestinian and Yotam Ottolenghi - a Jew of mixed heritage, are no longer official business partners in the Ottolenghi empire, I believe Sami Tamimi is still a silent partner, whilst striking out on his own in terms of cooking fame - he recently published his first solo book - Boustany - on Palestinian vegetarian food - that I look at every now and then, and will probably buy at some point.

The recipe shown above in a Jerusalem shop, is for a soup that is, like the city itself, the world on a plate - or in this instance in a bowl. It's called Kubbeh hamusta and is fundamentally kibbeh - meat filled semolina encased dumplings that are then cooked in a sour soup 'made with chard, celery, courgette, garlic and lemon juice."

Before I proceed to the actual recipe, just a quick aside on a minor quibble - or at least a question - with respect to the book. Below is the book - and the picture on the right faces a brief essay on Kibbeh - which opens the section entitled 'stuffed' The essay is a page long and is called The capital of kibbeh. So why I ask myself would you complete this double-page spread with a photograph of a fruit and vegetable market - rather lovely though it is? For it has nothing to do with kibbeh. Jerusalem yes, kibbeh no. It's just a grumble, but it is curious isn't it?

Late in my 'research' into the actual recipe I came across a website called Beyond Babylon, which is an Indian website and now added to my list of websites to look at, because as well as presenting a recipe for Kooba Hamusta (Garlic-Lemon Dumpling Soup) by Limor Laniado Tiroche, the author - Elli Benaiah said a number of interesting things, about it, and about kibbeh in general - the following being one of them:

"But kubbah isn’t just a Jewish story. It’s a regional rhythm. All across the Middle East — and stretching into Turkey — you’ll find cousins of kubbah with different names and casings: köfte, kibbeh, kefta, chapli kebab. The shapes change, the spices shift, but the basic idea is the same: meat wrapped in starch, seasoned with love, and cooked into something nourishing and soulful." Beyond Babylon

And he - I think it is a he - didn't even mention his spelling - 'kooba'.

Usually when we speak of kibbeh we think of deep fried, burghul encased meat, shaped into balls or pointed ovals. Elli Benaiah is right - they appear all over the Middle east and North Africa and further - wherever there are or have been Jews or Arabs.

The particular form we are talking about in this dish requires a casing of semolina and flour with the filling being braised or roasted meat, mixed with onions, celery and allspice. Well that's the filling in Jerusalem, but I'm willing to bet that it varies as well. The kibbeh are then dropped into a soup - there are three options - a tomatoey one, which Ottolenghi has adapted elsewhere according to his own childhood memories - Lamb Meatball and Semolina Dumpling Soup With Collard Greens/delicious. His adaptation has a mixture of meatballs, and semolina dumplings floating in a spicey tomato soup. The second soup option is a beetroot soup and third is the one in today's recipe - hamusta - the sour one, which apparently is the Jerusalem favourite but which was described in one article, by a server in a restaurant as "Hamousta is a bit extreme for a kubbeh rookie". Which is a bit patronising really isn't it, given that Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi offer it in their book - which is, after all, aimed at a 'rookie' audience?

It's not an easy thing to make however. Well the soup part is, but not the kubbeh - and all of those variants in name come from the Arabic for 'ball' by the way. Skill is required. So much so that Jerusalem tells us that:

"Being able to make a nice kubbeh was considered one of the basic requirements of a 'good' domesticated woman; a test of their refinement and elegance."

And Devra Furst of Northeast Public Radio, tells us:

"If the exteriors of the dumplings are too thick, they become cannon balls; too thin and they fall apart, muddying the soup."

Which is rather more down to earth than these words from Beyond Babylon.

"If you’ve ever made Kooba or kubbah (or kubeh, or kubbe, depending on where your grandma came from), you know the dance: you flatten the outer dough — made of semolina, rice, or bulgur — then gently nestle a spiced meatball in the center. You wrap it up like a precious gift, seal it tight, and then either fry, bake, or lower it lovingly into a bubbling pot of broth."

I found three other examples - there are more of course - should you feel like spending a weekend labouring over them - all of which seemed to be from Jewish sources: Sour kubbeh soup - aish; Kubbeh hamusta - 'Sherri Ansky/asif/The Flavour Mosaic; Kubbeh hamusta - Foodish/ANU/Museum of the Jewish People and Kubbeh Hamousta - Tali's Global Home

It's generally not an appetising looking dish is it, but I have to confess I'm rather drawn to the flavours in the soup. And really you just need a good food stylist and photographer to make it look good.

The origins - of course - are disputed - potentially Kurdish Jews from Iraq, who settled in Palestine in the 1930s, or Syrian Ashkenazy Jews (Kurdish too?) in the 1950s. Claudia Roden has a version in her classic A Book of Middle-Eastern Food, which she seems to suggest is an Egyptian dish - but then she is of Egyptian/Jewish origin. They became so popular in Jerusalem - which of course has a population made up of every country that had Jews as well as the local Palestinians - that it has made them its own, although as Ottolenghi and Tamimi point out:

"Nobody 'owns' a dish because it is very likely that someone else cooked it before them and another person before that."

Jerusalem was written way back in 2012. It was a hopeful book written by friends from opposite sides of the ongoing dispute over land and heritage that has fundamentally destroyed the place, and currently potentially spilling over to destroy the whole of the world in one way or another. And it's sad that the political dispute sometimes spills over into arguments over origins of the world's classic dishes. The authors of Jerusalem see these arguments as:

"futile because it doesn't really matter. Looking back in time or far afield into distant lands is simply distracting. The beauty of food and of eating is that they are rooted in the now. Food is a basic, hedonistic pleasure, a sensual instinct we all share and revel in. It is a shame to spoil it. ... Alas, although Jerusalemites have so much in common, food, at the moment, seems to be the only unifying force in this highly fractured place."

I don't think I shall be making this because it's all too hard, but I certainly would be tempted to try it if it appeared on a Middle-Eastern menu. I should revisit the book however, because there are heaps of very tempting recipes in there - many of them lovingly photographed by Jonathan Lovekin.

YEARS GONE BY

June 19

2025 - Nothing

2024 - Itty bitty/Itsy-bitsy

2023 - Rösti - not as straightforward as you might think

2022 - Nothing

2021 - Missing

2020 - Missing

2019 - A first recipe (part one) - Thai food

2018 - Just to share

2017 - On holiday