Koupes & Lemons

Koupes are traditional Cypriot mince pork meat croquettes encrusted in bulgar wheat, and shaped a lot like a lemon.  It is very similar to the Lebanese Kibbeh, (although these are made with minced lamb or beef, with the addition of pine nuts), and I like to think equally delicious.  Cypriots generally eat these as snacks for breakfast from a bakery, or as a midmorning or afternoon snack, and companies serve these daily in their canteens.

Now koupes are quite hard work, but you can make a batch of them, well in advance and just re-heat if you’re making them as part of a meze, or else you could freeze them for a rainy day.

The first couple of times I made koupes, it was a bit of a disaster!  I couldn’t understand what happened, I followed the recipe book meticulously, and still they turned out very badly.  My problem was getting the bulgar wheat paste smooth and malleable.  Eventually I found a solution.

Here’s what I used:

For the meat:

250g minced pork

1 clove of garlic finely chopped

1 small bunch of curly parsley, very finely chopped

1 onion, very finely chopped

1 tbsp of ground cinnamon

Pinch of salt + freshly ground black pepper

For the crust:

1 mug of bulgar wheat

1 ½ mugs of boiling water

2 tsp cinnamon

1 organic free range egg

Pinch of salt + freshly ground black pepper

Brown the onion, pork and chopped parsley.  Add the cinnamon and salt and pepper.  Taste and check for seasoning.  Leave the mince to cool.

Boil the kettle.  Add the boiling water to the bulgar wheat.  Leave the bulgar wheat to soak up all the water, this will only take 15 minutes or so.

When cooled, add the cinnamon, seasoning and the egg.  Mix thoroughly with your hands.  Put into a food processor and whizz up until it forms a relatively smooth paste.  If it’s too dry, add another egg.

By now the mince and bulgar wheat paste will have cooled enough to handle.

Wet your hands, as the paste will be very sticky.

Take a small lemon sized amount of paste in your hand, and shape into a more lemon-like shape.

Stick your little finger into one pointy end of your croquette and gently spread out leaving a hole big enough to fill with a couple of teaspoons of minced meat.

Gently pinch together the edges into another point.  If you don’t have enough in your croquette, then just take a little more paste from the bowl, and press onto your croquette.

Deep fry the croquettes in vegetable, sunflower or corn oil for approximately 8 minutes until a deep golden brown.

Serve piping hot with lemon wedges…..

…..and of course with love….xoxo

NB: if you don’t eat pork, you could easily use lamb mince or beef mince, or turkey mince or chicken mince.  If you are vegetarian, you could also use mushrooms.  If you would like to use the latter turkey, chicken or mushrooms, add allspice instead of cinnamon and a crumbled stock cube for added depth of flavour.