Come on over for  Middle Eastern food for Sunday Supper y’all!

My boyfriend and I tried this recipe out before and it was amazing the first time. I must say it was even more amazing the second time. We have tried out middle eastern restaurants all around Los Angeles County from a spot in Pasadena, to another spot 30 miles away in Redondo Beach, to ANOTHER place 15 more miles away in Long Beach. While all these places had great tasting koobideh, who can afford driving all these places and eating out all the time when you can make it at home!

Aashpazi’s Koobideh Recipe here!

Some tips for this recipe:

• We doubled the recipe (as usual) but the meat wasn’t EXACTLY 6lbs since we used two packets of the organic ground beef from Costco. BTW, fun fact our friends mentioned that the organic ground beef (the one that comes is a 3 pack) is halal…just in case you needed bulk halal ground beef
• The spice and seasoning measurements stayed the same and after marinading overnight, the meat tasted ON…POINT.
• Steep/soak your saffron first because it will take a while so get everything else ready
• Add binder if you feel like your meat won’t stay together
• We didn’t have the metal sticks to put the meat on so we made the…”links” or pewps as we called them by hand and placed them on a foil lined baking sheet before grilling

The Fixins by ME!!! 

The rice – So we made two different kinds of rice since our friend was watching his carb intake (Yaww how accomodating..IKNOWRIGHT)

• Saffron Rice – We added whatever extra saffron water you have left from the meat recipe to the rice, then fill the pot/rice cooker bowl thing with water, so you’ll have a light saffron colored/tasting rice.
• Garlic Smoked Paprika Cauliflower Rice – Some recipes say to grate the raw cauliflower first THEN cook it, but I didn’t want bits of cauliflower flying everywhere so I steamed the cauliflower first until pretty soft but not MUSHY then mashed/chopped it up. To get rid of some water and to add flavor, I stir fried the cauliflower rice with some minced garlic and about 1 tsp of smoked paprika for a head of cauliflower.

The Veggies

• Squash – buy a bag of the green and yellow squash from Costco. Clean them. Cut them in quarters lengthwise. Olive oil. Salt. Pepper. Grill.
• Blistered Tomatoes – Get some Roma tomatoes from Costco while you’re there. Clean them. Toss in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Grill until they blister. YEE-UM.