Shish Barak (Meat Dumplings)

Shish barak is a very interesting Middle Eastern dish that seems to be cooked rarely by households. It's certainly not as popular as your traditional maklooba and mansaf dishes but it's a delicious meal that's loved in the Middle East. I think some Syrians might be offended when reading this post because they love shish barak. Let me just say that I used to hate when my made shish barak because I was a shallow boy who thought the meal was appalling. I felt like the meal was sloppy so I used eat labenah or zatar for breakfast, lunch and dinner when my mom decided to cook shish barak. When I found out that the shish barak sauce tasted like mansaf, I decided to give it a try and until this day, I regret the fact that I judged the meal by its cover.

Shish barak is made from homemade flour dough. The dough is cut into small circular parcels and laid flat on the cooking board to prepare it for the stuffing. The stuffing consists of ground meat, salt, and chopped onions. The stuffing is placed into each parcel and the parcels are shaped like pieces of ravioli. The meat dumplings are either fried or baked depending on each household's preference. In the mean time, a hot yogurt sauce is prepared that consists of plain yogurt, chicken stock, garlic and salt. The yogurt sauce is like a thicker version of the sauce used to prepare mansaf. Once the yogurt sauce is prepared, the dumplings are placed in the sauce. Its best to eat this meal when it's hot because the meal loses its taste when it's cool and the yogurt sauce dries up.

Country of Specialty:

Shish barak is very popular in the Sham (Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria). Syria and Lebanon are well-known for making amazing shish barak.