Savtas Kubba Soup

The very first time I tasted Savta’s kubba soup, I was a newly engaged bride and my husband’s grandma had just come all the way from Israel for our wedding. Within a few hours of landing, she had already whipped up a batch of Iraqi kubba soup and I was enchanted with the dumpling-like meatballs. They say a wife should cook like her husband’s mother and grandmother and I inevitably wanted to try. So the very next time Savta returned to the United States, I asked her to teach me. Savta told me which ingredients to buy, and the very next day she came to my apartment to show me firsthand. Making kubba was a tedious process which included making a semolina dough from scratch and stuffing it with spiced ground beef. I watched her intently as I wrote down each step and measurement as she went along. She stocked my freezer with extra Kubba balls to make at a later date. But as the days passed by, my stash of Kuba balls began to dwindle and Safta had already returned to her home in Israel.

I came up with a simplified version of Saftas kubba soup. Instead of stuffing the dough with meat,  beef is rolled into meatballs, and egg noodles made of semolina replaces the dough that enveloped the meatballs. It has all the same components and flavor, but minus the time consuming labor, and best of all, my husband says it tastes just like Savtas.

Serves 10