Mubattan Kusha

This Lebanese meat & potato bake consists of layered potatoes with minced meat and a herby egg topping. There are versions of this dish in both Lebanon & Libya, so its difficult to assign this recipe to any one place though in my opinion, this particular recipe I would say is from Lebanon as the Lybian version generally has ginger & hot peppers. There are also versions of this dish that use lamb & others that top it all with breadcrumbs before baking.

4 Servings

Ingredients:

300gr minced beef

1kg potatoes, sliced into 1/2 cm tick sliced

1 onion, finely chopped

12 stalks of parsley, finely chopped

6 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp tomato paste

A pinch of cinnamon

S&P

6 sprigs of dill, finely chopped

2 eggs

1 tsp flour

Instructions:

Heat your oven to 200c.

Place potato slices on a baking tray lined with baking paper & brush with olive oil.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until they begin to soften, then remove the potatoes from the oven but leave it running at 200c.

As they bake, brown the minced beef in a pan with a little olive oil. Add the onion & tomato paste & fry on medium low heat for 3 minutes. Add 1/2 the parsley, a pinch of cinnamon, S&P. Fry a further minute.

In a bowl, beat the flour with the 2 eggs then add the remaining parsley, the dill, S&P. Mix well.

Brush an oven dish with olive oil (26cm x 16cm x 6cm is the ideal sized dish to use).

Using half the potatoes, add a layer of potatoes to the dish, overlapping each slice halfway onto the previous one.

Add 1/3 of the egg mix then spread the meat evenly.

Use the remaining potato slices to create another layer & drizzle the rest of the egg mix over the top.

Bake for 25 minutes or until the top of the bake has become crisp and golden.