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Keşkek

The grain and the meat are beaten together with a mallet until they become one stringy mass.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

Method

  1. THE GRAIN AND THE MEAT ARE BEATEN TOGETHER WITH A MALLET UNTIL THEY BECOME ONE STRINGY MASS. This is the whole dish and it is physical work. After hours of cooking together, a wooden mallet or the end of a rolling pin is used to pound the pot -- wheat and lamb together, for twenty or thirty minutes, until the grains have broken down and the meat has pulled into threads and the two cannot be told apart. What results is thick, glossy and faintly elastic, and it pulls into strands when a spoon is lifted out of it. Stirred rather than beaten, the same ingredients give a decent wheat and lamb stew in which you can see both. The beating is not a serving style; it is the cooking.
  2. THE STRINGINESS IS THE TEST AND IT ARRIVES SUDDENLY. For the first fifteen minutes of pounding it looks like it is not working. Then the texture changes over a few minutes and the mass starts to pull away from the spoon in threads. Stop before that and it is a stew; that change is what is being waited for.
  3. THE WHEAT IS SOAKED OVERNIGHT AND COOKED WITH THE MEAT FROM THE START. Twelve hours in cold water. Then into the pot with the lamb, not cooked separately -- the grain has to take up the lamb fat and gelatine over the whole long cook, which is what lets it break down into something glossy rather than merely soft.
  4. THE BONES STAY IN UNTIL THE POUNDING AND THEN COME OUT. The gelatine from them is most of what makes the finished mass hold together. They are fished out carefully just before the beating starts -- a bone fragment in a dish that is pounded smooth is both a hazard and impossible to find afterwards.
  5. THE BUTTER GOES ON TOP AT THE END AND IS NOT BEATEN IN. A hundred and fifty grams melted until it just starts to brown, the cumin and pepper stirred in, poured over the flattened surface so it pools. Beaten in, it makes the mass greasy and slack and the stringiness is lost.
  6. IT IS SALTED LATE. The wheat absorbs liquid for hours and salt added early concentrates as that happens. Salted at the two-hour mark and corrected at the end.
  7. The hulled wheat SOAKED in cold water OVERNIGHT, at least 12 HOURS, then drained.
  8. The lamb put in a very large heavy pot with the water and onion halves and brought to the boil. SKIMMED.
  9. The drained wheat added and the whole simmered, lid on, 3 HOURS, stirred occasionally and topped up with hot water if it tightens.
  10. Salted at the 2 HOUR mark.
  11. The onion halves and ALL THE BONES carefully removed.
  12. Now the POUNDING: a wooden mallet or the end of a rolling pin worked through the pot for 20 to 30 MINUTES.
  13. Continued until the texture CHANGES and the mass pulls away from the spoon in THREADS.
  14. Seasoning corrected and the surface flattened in a wide dish.
  15. The butter melted until just beginning to brown, the cumin and Aleppo pepper stirred in, and poured over so it POOLS on the surface.
  16. TESTED: a spoon lifted from it should draw strands. If it drops away cleanly, the pounding is not finished.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

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