Ramadan recipe: Fateem's kibbe shines, even in a Syrian IDP camp

For Ramadan, Fork the System brings you stories of family, connection, and the dishes that made the month special for our guest chefs.

For the past five years, Fateem Khaled Errahmoon and her large family have lived in a camp for displaced people near Maarat Misrin, a small city in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province.

They fled here after being forced from their home in Tah, a town in southern Idlib, during Syria’s long-running war.

With their finances tight, the family is still living in a weather-beaten tent.

But Fateem, a 45-year-old mother of 14, is no stranger to hard work. She is constantly moving around their living space, making sure things are as shipshape as possible.

She misses life in Tah, which she remembers fondly as a time when she and her husband were younger, living with relatives and surrounded by their love.

Every meal was a big family dinner back then, she recalls, and Ramadan was an especially important time for everyone to come together.

Today’s iftar, the meal at sunset when Muslims break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan, will be no different.

“I went grocery shopping and bought minced meat, onions, bulgur wheat and flour so I could make kibbe, sambousak and shish barak – dishes loved by every member of my family,” she says with a broad smile.

“Back home in Tah, those three were a staple of our home-cooked Ramadan feasts,” she says as she bustles around, preparing to cook.

There are no tables in Fateem’s cooking space, nor are there counters, mixers, vent hoods or even a stove. Everything is prepared on the floor, using the limited utensils and platters she has.

To cook, she has a wood-burning stove fashioned out of an old barrel. She feeds it with kindling and wood gathered around the camp. And to judge whether a pot is hot enough to cook in, she uses her experienced eye and a steady hand held above it.

Fateem was 18 the first time she cooked kibbe, sambousak and shish barak, she says. A new bride, she and her husband lived with her parents-in-law, but her own parents were not far away in their small town.

“You know, I was famous all over our town for how tasty my kibbe is. I’ve got that special touch, I guess,” Fateem says as she gathers her ingredients and sends one of her children scurrying out to look for a round tray she needs.

At Tah, she says, she used to make the three dishes “five or six times” every Ramadan.

“But after our displacement, we were no longer able to make them because meat was so expensive, and it’s the main ingredient of all these dishes.

“Today I’m making them because my kids are craving [them]. … It’s been more than a year since they last had them.”

Her mind goes back to the day she learned how to make kibbe, sambousak and shish barak.

“I remember, I was cooking with my mother-in-law and my mother in one of the village kitchens. They were singing this old folk song. It went something like, ‘The sun has set as the dark of night grows. The thread of love broke, and the heart cries out its woes.’ I still remember it.

“Making these dishes was always a chance for the family to come together, and every time I make them, I feel nostalgic for when we used to get together in Tah.”

Her mother and mother-in-law passed away nearly eight years ago. To honour their memory, Fateem says she has decided to make a lot of kibbe, sambousak and shish barak and give some of it to her neighbours.

And with that, off she goes. She says she is sure that once the call to prayer has sounded and everyone tastes her food, there will be no doubters that her kibbe is, indeed, superior.

Ingredients

Shell

• 10kg (22lb) bulgur
• 4 tablespoons dried Aleppo peppers
• 4 tablespoons dried mint
• 4 tablespoons salt
• 1kg (2.2lb) flour

Filling

• 1kg (2.2lb) minced lamb
• 1kg (2.2lb) onions, chopped
• 1 bunch parsley, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
• 3 tablespoons dried Aleppo pepper
• 1 1/2 tablespoons salt

Note: The amounts above in Fateem’s recipe are for enough kibbe to feed about 30 people, so you will have to divide the recipe according to your needs.

1. To make the kibbe shell, bring a very large pot of water to a boil, then take it off the heat. Add the bulgur, Aleppo pepper, mint and salt and cover for 30 minutes to an hour or until the bulgur kernels have plumped up and softened enough to put through a grinder.
2. Mince the soaked bulgur. Fateem uses a traditional, hand-cranked meat grinder, but a food processor will work just as well. Grind the bulgur until it is smooth and sticking together.
3. The filling is pretty simple: Brown the ground lamb in some vegetable oil. Then add the chopped onions, and cook until the onions are translucent and delicate. Add the chopped parsley and the seasonings, and take the pan off the stove once everything is fragrant.
4. Add the flour to the ground bulgur, and knead the mixture until it is smooth and holds together well.
5. Form the dough into round, flat, palm-sized portions, then shape them into cones.
6. Stuff them with the fried meat, then pinch the other end to make the classic kibbe shape. Make sure to seal it well so no stuffing breaks free during frying.
7. Heat oil, and fry the kibbes. Remove them when they reach a nut-brown colour.

Ingredients

Sambousak dough

• 5kg (11lb) flour
• 2 cups hot water
• 70g (2.5oz) yeast
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup yoghurt
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 teaspoons salt

Sambousak filling

This is the same as the filling for the kibbe

• 1kg (2.2lb) minced lamb
• 1kg (2.2lb) onions, chopped
• 1 bunch parsley, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
• 3 tablespoons dried Aleppo pepper
• 1 1/2 tablespoons salt

1. Mix the yeast with the sugar, yoghurt and a little warm water, and wait for it to bloom.
2. Put the flour in a large bowl. Add the 2 cups hot water and mix.
3. Add the yeast mix once it has bloomed plus the salt. Knead well until everything is well mixed.
4. Add the vegetable oil, and knead again until you have a smooth, elastic dough. Cover it and set aside to rise for about an hour.
5. While the dough is rising, you can prepare the filling. Again, it’s pretty simple: Brown the ground lamb in some vegetable oil. Then add the chopped onions, and cook until the onions are translucent and delicate. Add the chopped parsley and the seasonings, and take the pan off the stove once everything is fragrant.
6. After the dough has risen, pinch off small handfuls of it, and roll them out into circles. Put a teaspoon or two of the filling in the middle. Then fold one side over to form a semicircle. Use a fork to crimp the edges, so they don’t pop open while frying.
7. Slide the sambousaks into the hot oil, and fry until golden. It should only take about a minute, according to Fateem, but use your judgement.

Ingredients

Shish barak dough

• 5kg (11lb) flour
• 4 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups hot water
• Enough vegetable oil to knead the dough smooth

1. Put 1/2 cup of the vegetable oil and all the other ingredients in a big bowl and knead.
2. Add more oil as needed until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Shish barak filling and sauce

• 1/2kg (1.1lb) of minced beef
• 4 onions, finely minced
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 2 teaspoons dried mint
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 4kg (8.8lb) Arabic yoghurt

1. Mix all the stuffing ingredients together.
2. Roll out the dough, and cut out small circles about as wide as your index finger. Fateem uses an Arabic coffee cup.
3. Put a teaspoon of stuffing in the middle of each circle. Then seal the edges, and pinch the two ends of the semi-circle together to make little shish barak bundles, like the photo.
4. When you are done filling all the dough, put the yoghurt in a pot over medium heat, stirring constantly. When it starts boiling, add the shish barak, and cook for 20 minutes.