My grandmother made this recipe. I do hope you like it!
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Additional Time: | 25 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 5 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 cup cracked wheat
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces (Optional)
- ½ cup pine nuts
Instructions
- Soak wheat in a bowl of warm water until water is slightly absorbed, about 25 minutes. Drain and squeeze out excess moisture.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 10×14-inch baking dish.
- Mix soaked wheat, ground beef, onion, lemon juice, cinnamon, salt, and black pepper together in a bowl. Spread mixture in the prepared baking dish; top with butter and pine nuts.
- Bake in the preheated oven until ground beef is no longer pink, about 25 minutes. Turn on oven’s broiler; broil until top is browned, 5 minutes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 439 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 27 g |
| Cholesterol | 79 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 5 g |
| Protein | 28 g |
| Saturated Fat | 9 g |
| Sodium | 89 mg |
| Sugars | 2 g |
| Fat | 26 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I converted to Antiochian Orthodox and got really attached to this dish. But, we always bought it from the women’s group at church. Then we moved to an area with mostly Greek food at the church (also delish!). We are so glad to be able to make our own! Thanks!!
This recipe came out really good! My parents and I did some changes though: added parsley to taste, replaced the allspice with some Goya seasoning, added a splash of olive oil, and used only 1 and 1/2 tbspoon of cinnamon. We still agreed that the cinnamon was a little strong so we’ll try with only 1 next time. We also topped it with walnuts because we didn’t have pine nuts, but we’ll definitely try them next time! Thanks for sharing!!
I used lamb instead and it turned out very well.
I, too, have eaten this meal since childhood, made by my mother and grandmother. We used cinnamon. I never had a written recipe, so I was happy to find this one. We did one thing differently, which may help with the pine nuts falling off. My mother always divided the mixed meat and pressed half of it into the baking pan and then sprinkled the pine nuts over the meat. Then she spread the rest of the meat on top. The pine nuts were sandwiched between the two layers, thus solving the problem of them falling off.
This is my grandmothers recipe except hers isn’t as specific with quantities, it’s just a pinch of that and a bit of that, etc… So it nice to have some quantities to go by. I grew up with the cinnamon flavors not allspice, etc as other reviewers suggested so I prefer the cinnamon. I grated a medium onion for this so you don’t have big chunks in the meat and it needs about a full tsp of salt, maybe more so it’s not too bland. Also you should use the lowest fat percentage beef you can find (97%+ is the best). Dip the cooked product in ketchup. Yum! Thanks!
Allspice and cumin is my route too. However, with the sauteed onions and pine nuts I also add steak cut up….better filling. I put one layer of the kibbe, the steak mixture, and then a layer of kibbe on top, seal it, poke little holes in it and pour olive oil on top and bake. It comes out tender and not dry.
This was very good! Our family’s recipe is similar, but we use allspice and cumin instead of the cinnamon. I did cut the cinnamon back some, and that worked better for our tastes. This was very easy to make and smelled wonderful while it was baking. The pine nuts sort of ‘fell’ off the top, but I think if I would’ve pressed them in a bit that would’ve fixed that problem, lol. All in all this was tasty and I would make it again! Thanks for sharing. 🙂