Grumpy Scrumpy and Kurdish Kubbeh

This past Friday, Mr. BT, Mimi from Israeli Kitchen and I embarked on an adventure to a town a few kilometers from Jerusalem to crush apples  and press them for scrumpy, otherwise known as farmhouse hard cider. Mr. BT and I are virgin hard cider makers, but we knew that with Mimi, who makes some very nice red wines, fruit wines, and mead, that we had the potential to produce something great.

When we arrived at our destination, Mimi, also a great forager of wild edible plants, spotted a flowering caper bush. I had never seen a caper flower and as you can see in the picture above, they are quite beautiful. She also found a few leaves of  purslane for us to munch on.

Our host was already busy crushing apples when we arrived and we happily offered a helping hand. He had purchased 1600 kilos (3,500 lbs) of apples to crush. No, the apples were not all for us: we only purchased 20 liters (5 US gallons) of apple juice, which was probably the result of crushing 50 or 60 kg of fruit.

Mimi and I grabbed a crate of Granny Smith and a crate of Golden Delicious apples to crush. It was important to have a 50/50 mix of the apples in order to get the right balance of tartness and sweetness, and Israel doesn’t have the same variety of traditional cider apples that you find in Somerset or Herefordshire, the two main cider-producing counties of  England.

We then handed the crushed apples over to the strong, brawny men to do the hard part, pressing the crushed apples. We only pressed them once although some press twice in order to extract the maximum possible amount of juice.

The men, Mr BT included, took turns pressing the apples. This hard labor produces the lovely apple juice that we needed to make our hard cider.

Mr BT gave me a small cup of the juice to taste and it was lovely.

We worked up quite an appetite after we crushed and pressed a ton of apples, so we put the juice in a fermentation bucket, said our thank yous and goodbyes, and headed for a famous little hole-in-the-wall in Or Yehuda.

On our way to Or Yehuda, Mr BT, Mimi, and I were trying to come up with a clever name for our cider. I suggested Grumpy Scrumpy because Mr BT was a little grumpy that day. He wanted to name it Humpy Scrumpy after his beloved animal, the camel, but I told him it had a whole other meaning and didn’t think it was a good idea. So, Grumpy Scrumpy it is! I will keep you updated on the progress of our cider.

I know you are going to say haven’t you had enough kubbeh this month, well…..no! I have been trying to go to Pundak Moshe for the past three years and every time I wanted to go, we had something else we had to do that was more important. This time when I suggested going there, I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. We didn’t have the address with us, so we stopped at a petrol station to ask the attendant where “the kubbeh restaurant is”. Actually, there are two of them, but he immediately said, “you want to go to Pundak Moshe?”. Of course, we said yes and he gave us directions. It looks like a tiny shack from the outside, but once you enter the restaurant it is actually quite deep.

As we entered the building, I had thoughts of my grandmother coming with me to this restaurant: she would have walked in and immediately walked out. It is not dirty, but there are pots everywhere and it would have been too messy looking for my neat-freak grandmother (z”l).

I knew from the long line of people waiting to take home a variety of kubbeh that was bubbling away in huge pots, that this was going to be worth the three-year wait.

As we inched up closer to the rainbow of colors in the pots, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy decision figuring out which pot to choose from. The pots contained kubbeh and a variety of other traditional home-cooked dishes, such as stuffed vegetables and meat stews.

They also sell charcoal-grilled meats.

But then I saw a beautiful pot of pumpkin bubbling away with bits of hot red pepper floating around and it had my name on it.

Moshe dished up the pumpkin with semolina kubbeh and put it in a bowl filled with plain white rice. Mr BT decided to have the same.

Mimi also got the same kubbeh, but over yellow rice and she also took some intestines stuffed with meat and rice that were flavoured with cardamom.

The kubbeh and the stuffed intestines were delicious. It is a good thing I don’t live in Or Yehuda because I would weigh 400 lb (180kg) from eating at Pundak Moshe every Friday.

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Written by Baroness Tapuzina

Michelle Nordell (aka Baroness Tapuzina) was a foodie from the womb growing up in the House of Weird Vegetables, so named by a family friend because all of the unusual and exotic food cooked and eaten there. She loves to change recipes using herbs from her garden and spices from the spice shops she enjoys visiting.

18 thoughts on “Grumpy Scrumpy and Kurdish Kubbeh

  1. How fun that you made your own cider.

    I’ll have to try Pundak Moshe, I’ve always gone to Nedra’s (the other place) before but from your photos and description this one looks well worth a try. Hmmm, maybe I’ll convince the family to go tomorrow…

  2. Lovely pictures Baroness! I read about the apple pressing in Mimi’s blog and now in yours and can’ wait to hear how the end result will taste like. I love “hard” apple cider, which is extremely popular in Finland, where I come from.
    And that Kurdish place, what lovely looking things they have in their pots!

  3. Hi Robin,

    I would also like to go to Nedra’s. Chaim Cohen’s Shum, Pipel v’ Shemen Zeit featured the family and the restaurant on his show a year or so ago.

    Thanks Yaelian. We can’t wait to try the hard cider. They used to sell hard cider in the supermarket, but the company must have gone out of business. I haven’t seen it on the shelves in several years.

  4. also looking forward to taste-testing the various ciders at Denny’s in a few months 🙂

  5. My husband is desperately trying to come up with reasons to go to Or Yehuda. ASAP. 🙂

  6. looks like I missed lots of fun, I would have loved to have joined you. I didn’t realize there were two kubba places in Or Yehuda. Whenever my husband wants to surprise me he buys kubba from one of them, I think Nedra’s but looks like she has some tough competition.

  7. I love the grumpy scrumpy name – you should copyright it 😉 with mr BT’s permissin of course. Perhaps as a boutique cider. Pity that israel does not have the wonderful english and european style alcoholic ciders.

    great fan of kubeh too, almost worth a special trip to the or Yehuda boondocks……

    Shabbat Shalom all!

  8. Grumpy Scrumpy, great name, you should copyright. with mr BT’s permission of course .;-)

    I’m a cider lover, pity that there’s no real alcoholic cider (low % for that added tang + kick) to be found in Israel like English, Swedish style. maybe a boutique cider something to be considered.

    Thanks for the Kubeh tips, almost worth a special trip to the or yehuda boondocks to sample.

    Shabbat Shalom all

  9. Lovely posting! I’m always looking for kubbeh on the Web. I found so little on YouTube when I was searching for instructions that I made a video in my office. My officemate learned how to make kubbeh from his grandmother. He was willing to let me record him mixing the solet into dough and shaping it into boiled kubbeh. We had to use dried fruit for the filling (it was Tu biShvat and I had this brain wave). One of these days we’ll make the follow-up video with the meat but that will probably have to be in his kitchen!

    http://apinnick.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/video-1-how-to-make-boiled-kubbeh/

    1. Thanks Avital. I would love to learn how to make kubbeh. I will take a look at your blog.

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