Shishbarak

Those of you who read yesterday's article - A Worldly Evening - would have came across Shishbarak.

The name sounds Turkish to me, but both my mother and some Turkish reader will sure correct me tomorrow. 

Either way, it is a delicious dish and happy to share the recipe with you.

Traditionally, Lebanese women will spend hours making dough and rolling it into those shell-like balls, stuffed with meat.

I, unfortunately, don't have the skill or the time to do this. Instead, I bought ready-made meat perogies.

But rather than boiling them, I roasted them in a 475 oven until they turned brown.

The way to eat this with the balls over rice and covered with cooked yogurt.

Preparing the yogurt is the toughest part of making Shishbarak. So I had to resort to an extremely valuable recipe from my mom - "cooking yogurt".

First, you soak 0.5 cup Italian rice in water.

You then mix a large yogurt container (750 g) with 1 Tbsp corn starch. Pass through a colander into a pot. Add the equivalent of the yogurt container in water. 

Turn the heat on medium and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Once boiled, add the soaked rice (with no water). Stir until the yogurt starts making tiny bubbles.

The secret ingredient for flavour, though, is "Alleyeh" (click HERE for recipe).

Simply, "Alleyeh" is a pre-prepared crushed garlic and chopped cilantro fried lightly in olive oil.

Add a generous amount of this to the yogurt, bring to a boil again and it is ready to eat.

Shishbarak is best eaten warm, not boiling hot.

Again, just pour those crunchy balls on top of rice, cover with the yogurt mix and enjoy.

And it is addictive, I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, eating the leftovers cold!