Tag #123907 - Interview #78792 (Harun Bozo)

'Kubbe' was a special 'ichli kofte,' which was a Jewish dish blended with Arab culture. Kubbe was the long, narrow type of meatball special to the Jews. Normally Kubbe is made from bulgur [boiled and pounded wheat]. It can also be made from rice and pounded red meat and you add boiled water and tomato sauce. This you do not find in the Turkish cuisine. My sisters used to make this. My elder sister still does. It's really very difficult to make. The new generations don't know how to cook these dishes. The Urfa cuisine is slowly disappearing. It is during the holidays that all the family gets impatient to eat everything that my elder sister cooks in the old way. For example there is another dish called 'kaburga' [rib], which we love and which is very, very hard to make. You get lamb meat and stuff it with almonds, pine nuts and rice. After you stuff the meat you sew it up and close it off. Then you bake it in the oven with black pepper. You can serve it with potatoes or broad beans. My elder sister makes it once with potatoes and once with broad beans. These dishes are only cooked on special days every year. They are made on special occasions. The Arab stuffed vegetables are something else. When my elder sister makes stuffed squash [stuffed with meat] she adds tomato sauce and garlic to it and cooks them with dried apricots. The apricots kind of get soft and the meal has a slightly sour taste.