Kebab Halabi (grilled kebab with meat)

Kebab Halabi, Aleppo’s most famous dish that is distinguished by its unique way in cooking in this ancient city.

Kebab is made by mixing minced meat (beef or lamb) with nuts, seven spice mix, onions, and salt, then put the mixture on long skewers and grilled in open fire or over lava stone this way which gives the kebabs a particular flavor. Although kebab is often cooked on a skewer over a fire, it could also be cooked without skewering on a grill, baked in a pan in an oven, or prepared as a stew.

The grilled meat is served with sauce and yogurt, mint leaves, and cumin powder.

Kebab Halabi may serve as sandwiches along with hot and cold meze like kibbeh, muhammara, baba ghanouj and sujuk rolls.

Ingredients:

500 g ground lean beef

1/8 cup almonds roughly chopped

¼ cup onion finely diced

1 tsp salt

3 tsp seven spice

Sauce

1 tsp olive oil

1 onion, sliced narrow strips

3 large tomatoes, peeled and diced

1 tsp salt

2 tsp sumac

One bell pepper, sliced width

Preparation

1- Preheat the oven to 180 C.

2- Combine beef, almonds, onion, salt and seven spices in a bowl. Use your hands to massage the ingredients all together until thoroughly mixed.

3- Take a handful of beef and roll it on skewers, and grilled in open fire.

4- Sauce: The tomato sauce is made by cooking garlic and finely chopped onion with oil over high heat until translucent. Add tomatoes and salt, after about 5 minutes, add sumac.

5- After 10 minutes, pour the sauce over Kebab when it becomes ready.

6- Serve warm on top of vermicelli rice.

Hamsa Zughib