This shish barak recipe is an authentic Lebanese yogurt soup with meat dumplings that is perfect for Winter! Warm up with this delightful Middle Eastern soup recipe.
Lebanese Shish barak is a traditional Middle Eastern dish that is both delicious and comforting. It is made of small dumplings filled with meat (usually lamb or beef) and cooked in a yogurt based sauce. The dumplings are typically made from a dough made of flour and are shaped into small, round balls or moons before being cooked.
One of the best things about shish barak is its versatility. It can be served as a main course or as a side dish, and can be enjoyed on its own or with a variety of accompaniments such as rice or traditional pita bread. Additionally, the Lebanese meat dumplings cooked in yogurt sauce can be adjusted to suit individual tastes, making it a great dish for entertaining or for family meals.
Origins
Shish barak (aka chich barak, shihbarak, or shishbarak) has a long history in the Middle East, and is believed to have originated in Lebanon. However, it is also popular in other countries such as Syria, Israel, and Jordan. Despite its origins, shish barak has become a beloved dish around the world, and can be found in many Middle Eastern restaurants.
My relatives called this a Lebanese kishk recipe, or kishk soup.
🥣 Ingredients
The ingredients for Lebanese yogurt soup with dumplings are:
- all purpose flour
- extra virgin olive oil
- whole milk yogurt
- corn starch
- lean ground beef
- onions
- toasted pine nuts
- butter or ghee
- dried mint (or fresh mint)
- garlic
- spices
🔪 Instructions
Making the dough for Lebanese dumplings
To make shish barak at home, you will need to start by making the dough for the dumplings. This is a simple process that involves mixing flour, salt, and water together until the dough is smooth and elastic. The dough is then left to rest for a few minutes before it is stuffing and shaping it.
Go ahead and mix the dumpling ingredients together with the Kitchenaid or stand mixer with the dough hook attachment. Knead it until it is combined and smooth. Set it aside while working on the meat stuffing.
This is a labor of love, especially if you are making everything from scratch, without a dumpling maker. Whenever I make it, I make the meat filled dumplings and freeze them for later, that way I don't get overwhelmed with the preparation.
Another BIG help, is to use this simple dumpling maker that I got on Amazon. Trust me, it's a huge time saver and it can be used for other dishes too (like homemade pizza pockets!). It's actually a Pelmini maker, which is a metal mold for stuffing little dumplings or ravioli.
Next, the meat filling is prepared. This is typically made with ground lamb or beef, onions, pine nuts, and a variety of spices such as cinnamon and allspice. This is what we call "Hashweh." It is browned together and is used in other things like baked kibbeh and fried kibbeh balls, and also just served with rice.
Chop the onions up and add it to a non-stick skillet along with the lean ground beef, pine nuts, spice and butter. Brown it altogether, drain any fat and let it cool for a few minutes before making the shish barak dumplings.
Cut the dough in fourths and roll it very thin like a pie crust. Make sure it is wide enough to fit over the dumpling mold. Place the sheet of dough over the dumpling maker and with a spoon, put a small amount of the hashweh meat stuffing in the center of each whole. DON'T OVERESTUFF IT!
Roll out another sheet of the shish barak dough and place it over the top of the dumpling mold. It make be helpful to take some water on your finger and wet down the dough that is in between the meat on the first layer, this will help the top layer stick.
With a rolling pin, roll over the top of all of the layers until you see the shapes of the metal mold. With your finger, pop the dumplings out one by one. Repeat these steps until you have used up all of the hashweh beef stuffing.
Place all of the dumplings on a baking sheet and bake until golden brown. At this point you can freeze them, or use them right away in the Middle Eastern yogurt soup.
For the Lebanese yogurt sauce
The dumplings are then cooked in a yogurt based sauce. The sauce is made by combining yogurt or with broth or water, and then adding spices such as garlic, mint and olive oil.
To make the Lebanese yogurt soup, go ahead and take whole milk yogurt (do NOT use Greek yogurt) and place it in a large pot or Dutch oven. Turn the stove to medium heat and slowly add the water, while whisking constantly. You need to keep whisking and make sure not to bring it to a boil.
Once the mixture is hot, with a ladle, put about ¼ cup of the yogurt sauce into a measuring cup, add the corn starch and whisk together until smooth. Pour it back into the pot then cook for about 15 minutes or until the yogurt sauce coats the back of a spoon. It should slightly thicken.
Add the dumplings to the yogurt base soup and cook for another 10 minutes, dumplings should begin to float.
For the garnish
In a small saucepan add several tablespoons of olive oil and heat over medium heat. Once it is hot, add 3 cloves of minced garlic, 1 teaspoon of dried mint leaf and a handful of pine nuts. Sauté for about 1 minute and garnish the top of the soup with it. And you've made a tasty shish barak Lebanese recipe soup!
Serve while hot.
You might also enjoy these other popular recipes:
- Whipped Shortbread Cookies
- Blueberry Puff
- Mint Yogurt Sauce - Lebanese Yogurt Dip
- Broccoli Au Gratin
- Lebanese Cucumber Salad with Yogurt and Mint
- Lebanese Falafel (Vegan Falafel Recipe)
- Sumac Onions
- Lebanese Chicken Shawarma
🍽 Equipment
If you're asking me, I think it's really important to have the dumpling maker! It will save you a ton of time, because makin those small Lebanese dumplings by hand takes FOREVER!
📖 Recipe
Shish Barak
Ingredients
Hashweh Meat Filling for Dumplings
- ½ lb lean ground beef
- ¼ cup pine nuts
- ½ yellow onion diced
- 1 ½ tablespoons butter or ghee
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon ground pepper
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Shish Barak Dough
- 3 cups flour all purpose
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2 tablespoons olive oil extra virgin
- 1 cup water
Yogurt Soup
- 32 ounces whole milk yogurt*
- 2 ½ cups water
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 tablespoons dried mint
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ¼ cup pine nuts
Instructions
For the dumpling dough
- Add the flour, sugar, salt olive oil, and water into a large mixing bowl. With the dough attachment for a Kitchenaid or stand mixer, knead the ingredients together until it comes together in a ball
- Cover and set aside to rest for 20 minutes while preparing the hashweh filling
Meat filling (hashweh)
- In a non-stick skillet, brown the ground beef, spices and pine nuts together in butter or ghee
- After the dough is prepared and the meat filling is done, prepare a clean space for working and get out your pelmini maker (dumpling maker, see note in article). Cut the dough into fourths and roll one out until thin (like a pie crust). Place it over the Pelmini maker, making sure it covers the whole thing.
- preheat the oven to 400 °F
- In each depression of the dough, carefully fill it with the meat mixture, making sure not to overstuff it and making sure it stays in the depression.
- Take another fourth of the dough ad roll it out like before. Carefully place the dough on top of the other filled dough. With a rolling pin, roll it until each dumpling is sealed and you can clearly see the shape of the dumplings.
- Carefully flip the dumplings over and pop each one out with your finger onto a baking sheet or tray.
- Repeat these steps to make the dumplings until you run out of the meat stuffing
- Bake the dumplings in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes, or until they start to brown.
- Remove them from the oven and prepare the soup, or at this point you can freeze the dumplings once they are cooled.
Yogurt Soup
- In a large pot over medium, add the whole milk yogurt, water and salt and whisk together constantly for about 15 minutes. Do not allow it to boil!
- Once the yogurt seems to be beginning to thicken, measure out about ⅓ cup of the soup base into a measuring cup and add the cornstarch and whisk together until smooth. Add the cornstarch mixture back into the pot and whisk together for another 10 minutes.
- Add the prepared dumplings and let the soup simmer on low-medium heat while you prepare the garnish.
- In a small pot, add the olive oil, minced garlic and mint. Sauté together for 1-2 minutes. Pour the garnish over the top of the soup along with some more pine nuts and serve while hot.
Notes
Comments
No Comments