Warak enab, better known as yabbrah, is a meal my Lebanese side of the family often eats. This dish is not made on any special occasion. However, this meal ends up on our table at every special event, because it is a family favorite. It is one of my grandmother’s specialties. At each holiday that my family and I spent together, my grandmother would make something different for each occasion, but since my cousins and I did not like those different dishes she use to make us, she always made yabbrah so that we would end up eating something we all liked. Since my family is big, my grandmother would have to make a lot of food, so all of the women would help out in the kitchen by putting the rice and the meat on a leaf and rolling them up. This dish is a cultural favorite, because it was inexpensive to make. The main ingredient is the leaf, which grows in everyone’s backyard from a grape vine, so people just pick it off the vine and only have to buy the rice and the meat. There are many ways to make yabbrah, but my grandmother makes it the more simple way because it is less work. The other way is to make it with ox tail bones around the leaves stuffed with meat and rice, instead of using butter to give it a juicier taste, and also so that the leaves don’t stick. All of the ingredients used to make this amazing dish are all available at any supermarket.
I hope this dish gets passed on from generation to generation to keep this wonderful tradition and so that everyone can taste the same great dish I love.
I hope this dish gets passed on from generation to generation to keep this wonderful tradition and so that everyone can taste the same great dish I love.
Recipe
Ingredients
– 500 g ground beef
– 1½ cup dry rice
– ¾ cup lemon juice
– salt to taste
– 1 cup spices
– 1 tbsp butter
– 500 g leaves (found at any Lebanese store (e.g. Adonis))
Note: The ingredients vary depending on how many people you are making them for.
Procedure
- Put all the ingredients into a bowl except for the leaves.
- Boil the leaves for 2 minutes.
- Separate the leaves.
- Put the mixed rice, meat, and everything else onto the leaves.
- Roll them up.
Photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sarma.jpg
