This past week, every single one of my days began with a question from Kevin. If I didn't answer, he would ask me the same thing again – not just in the morning, but at midday and in the evening too. I took to hunting for new recipe ideas out of his sight, cooking quietly, and going food shopping without telling him, purely to dodge that dreadfully tiresome question – „GRETA, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE KIBINAI?”. It all started with a chance trip to a shopping centre, where he happened to follow his nose into a little bakery selling devilishly good chicken kibinai (and I really do think I am qualified to judge the quality of a kibinas, because I have tasted an awful lot of them, of every kind😁👌). After that, by some mysterious means, we started dropping into that shopping centre more and more often, until one fine day the question above arrived.🤦
Joking aside, the only reason I didn't want to make kibinai was that I had always assumed they took forever (well, and perhaps because I was afraid mine would never measure up to the ones from the bakeries). Now that the last kibinas has just been eaten, I can say – I was completely wrong. With the filling made the night before, they took me no longer in the morning than an ordinary lunch would have, the kitchen stayed tidy, and I only had three bowls to wash. And now the best part – the „house committee” has assessed and confirmed that my kibinai beat every one we have tasted so far!✌
This was the first time in my life I had baked kibinai, so perhaps they fall a little short on presentation, but the taste… Mmmmm… They simply melt in your mouth. I think a big part of that was using baking margarine made with butter (margarine gives that short, crumbly quality), so the pastry baked up beautifully short, almost like puff pastry. And for the filling, the important thing is to use chopped meat rather than mince. I chose chicken thigh meat and chopped it very finely with a knife (into 0.5-1cm cubes) rather than using breast, because I wanted the filling to stay as juicy as possible (breast can sometimes turn dry as it bakes). I can honestly say I got it right and wouldn't change a thing in this recipe. 10/10.
