Sakhtūr (Stuffed Sheep Tripe, a.k.a. Kība)

History

Al-Baghdadi's sakhtūr (سختور), which he says "is called kība," is an elaborate stuffed-offal dish: sheep stomach cavities (ajwāf al-ghanam) scrubbed with hot water, soap, and citron leaves, painted inside and out with saffron and rosewater, then packed with pounded spiced meat shaped into small kubab, rice, chickpeas, shaved darsīnī (cinnamon) and ground aromatics, and sometimes scalded chicken; the casings are sewn shut with linen thread or pinned, then baked overnight in the tannūr. The name kība belongs to the Arabic root k-b-b, "to ball up / make round," possibly echoing an Akkadian term for stuffed food. In the medieval Arabic cookbooks kubba was a broad category of pounded-meat and meatball preparations rather than the bulgur-shelled kibbeh known today; Charles Perry notes there is "no mention of a raw meat preparation in the 10th- and 13th-century Arabic cookbooks," and the food historian Manal Mourad traces the kubba family to ancient Mesopotamia. The familiar filled-bulgur kibbeh of the Levant is not documented until the 18th century. Al-Baghdadi's kība is thus an early witness to the k-b-b tradition of molded and stuffed meat dishes, not a direct ancestor of modern kibbeh.

Ingredients

• fatty meat
• sheep tripe/casings
• lean red meat
• rice
• chickpeas
• saffron
• rosewater
• citron leaves
• mixed spices
• dry coriander
• cumin
• mastic
• pepper
• cinnamon
• ginger
• scalded chicken
• salt

Instructions

1. Cut fatty meat small.
2. Wash the fine sheep tripe three times — hot water and soap, then hot water and citron leaves, then water and salt — until clean, and coat inside and out with saffron and rosewater.
3. Pound lean red meat with spices, shape small meatballs, set them in hot water until firm, then add to the cut meat.
4. Mix in rice (twice the meat's weight) and chickpeas (a quarter), well washed.
5. Season with salt and shaved cinnamon, dye with saffron, and scatter ground coriander, cumin, mastic, pepper, cinnamon, and ginger; optionally add scalded jointed chicken.
6. Cut the tripe medium, stuff it with the mixture, sew with linen thread or pin with dry-wood skewers, and arrange in a pot.
7. Cover with water, salt, and the same spices, dye the water with a little saffron, and add thin slices of fatty meat; top up water after boiling.
8. Set in the tannūr, cover the mouth from early night until morning, then lift out and serve.
9. For a version without casings, put the meat, rice, and chickpeas in a narrow-mouthed pot with water four fingers above, bake in the tannūr, stir once at the boil, cover, and leave until morning.