Kubbeh

The word kubbeh comes from the Arabic kubba, a ball, and that is exactly what it is: a ball of dough around a filling. From Iraq to Lebanon and from Kurdistan to Syria, almost every kitchen in the region developed its own kubbeh, and quite a few cities gave it their names: kubbeh halab after Aleppo, kubbeh mosul after Mosul, and nabulsieh after Nablus.

In Israel kubbeh took a path of its own. Jews from Iraq and Kurdistan brought semolina kubbeh in soup, which became a Friday dish and moved from there to market stalls and into every home. Alongside it, fried nabulsieh settled in as an almost national starter. Today someone who says kubbeh might mean a soft semolina ball in beet soup or a crisp bulgur torpedo from the pan, and both are right.

Kubbeh soup is not one soup but a method: cook a sour vegetable soup and drop in beef filled semolina kubbeh, which simmer in it until the dough is soft and semi translucent. In Iraqi and Kurdish Jewish homes the soup changes with the season: beets in winter, pumpkin in autumn, okra in summer, and Swiss chard with zucchini almost all year. What stays constant is the sourness, from lemon, tomatoes or tamarind, and the kubbeh themselves.

A good kubbeh soup needs three things: a soup seasoned a little too strongly before the kubbeh go in, because the dough absorbs salt and acid; a wide pot where the kubbeh float in a single layer; and a gentle simmer with no spoon stirring. Four kubbeh per bowl make a portion, and a wide 6 litre pot holds 32 kubbeh and soup for eight.