I am pleased to report that vegan kibbey nayye continues to be a hit. My wife had left a white onion in the fridge when she left on her last business trip, I had a pound of vegan hamburger in the freezer and a bag of fine bulghur wheat in the fridge, and there was a snowstorm threatening to snow us in all weekend. So I made some vegan kibbey nayye, and it turned out quite well.
Differences on this outing: I washed the bulghur wheat three times and soaked it in the absolute minimum amount of water, I drained the excess onion juice off the ground onion, which I think improved its texture. I alternated a big spoon and a potato masher rather than hand mixing it this time (more out of paranoia and fastidiousness than anything else). The spices, remarkably, I got right the first time: a decent amount of salt, somewhat less pepper and cumin, a little bit less cinnamon, and even less allspice. It Just Worked(TM).
Combine that with some thin lavash bread in the freezer (which I am getting better at the technique of flash-defrosting with 30 seconds in the microwave and an equal amount in the toaster) and the increasingly good pickled hot peppers, which are only improving as they age, and a little Filipio Berio olive oil …
And that was a pretty good meal — actually, a few meals, over 2-3 days.
-the Centaur
Pictured: vegan kibbey nayye, lavash bread, olive oil, pickled hot peppers, and the reading pile.
