Iraqi potato chaps are the ultimate snack - Mada Masr

During the initial stages of the pandemic last year, when restaurants were first shuttered across Europe, I came across the cooking of Phillip Juma, an Iraqi chef in London. After his restaurant was forced to shut down, Juma took to preparing his takes on Iraqi classics — dolma of stuffed onions, tepsi baytinijan, and biryani — and delivering them to healthcare workers in hospitals across the city. 

Juma’s actual speciality, however — and the name of his stall in London’s Borough Market — is kubba, which refers to a family of assorted dumplings found in Iraqi and Kurdish cuisines that are made mostly from casings of semolina and bulgur, stuffed with spiced meat and then fried or added to soups. 

Chaps are a kind of kubba, which use mashed potatoes instead of grains for their casing, making them a perfect fluffy, crispy mezze option. While nobody knows where the name comes from, the art of making kubba (and of stuffing food) has deep roots in Iraq, going back to the Babylonians. 

Cooking time: 1 hour, 30mins

Serves: 5-6

Stuffing 

300g lamb mince

1 medium onion

2 tablespoons baharat spice (a mix of cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, black pepper and cloves)

3 tablespoons chopped parsley

Sea salt

Shell 

1kg potatoes

2 tablespoons corn flour

Sea salt

1 egg

200g fresh breadcrumbs (shred a baguette to make this)

Half a liter of sunflower oil

To serve

Coriander

Date molasses 

Bring a pot of salted water to the boil and drop the potatoes in whole with the skin on. Boil until cooked, which will depend on the size of the potatoes, making sure not to pierce the potato skins while cooking. Drain and set aside to cool.

Finely chop the onion and fry gently in 1 tablespoon of oil until translucent. Next, add the lamb mince – turn up the heat to medium high. After 5 minutes, add the baharat, 1 tsp salt and cook, turning with a wooden spoon, until the lamb is not pink and any liquid has evaporated. Add the chopped parsley and leave to cool.

Once the potatoes are cool, peel the skin away and discard. Cut into small pieces. 

Take a potato masher and begin making a smooth mash. Discard any lumpy bits that don’t seem to soften. Add the cornflour, plenty of salt and egg and mix with your hands until combined. Get a small bowl and fill with water. Place the bowls of meat, the potato mixture and the breadcrumbs on a table next to each other and using the water bowl, moisten both hands, take a ball of dough around the size of a golf ball and flatten in the palm of your hand, then add some stuffing mix in the center. Gather edges and close up into a ball. Then gently flatten in your hands to a disc shape. Keep going until all the mixture is used, making sure your hands always have water on them so the dumplings don’t stick to your skin. 

Wash your hands and moisten again. Dunk each chap into the breadcrumbs and either freeze for later or begin frying. 

Heat sunflower oil in a pan so it covers 2 cm up the sides. On a medium heat, fry on each side for around 4 minutes, until golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper.

Drizzle some date molasses in a bowl and serve alongside chaps. Tear up some coriander and sprinkle over. 

Secrets to making this work

Potatoes: When boiling the potatoes make sure that they are cooked with the skins on but only till soft, you don’t want them to get water logged. If they are still too moist when you peel them, put them in a tray covered with foil. Use a fork to pierce the foil to create a few steam vents and place in the oven at around 190 degrees Centigrade for 10 minutes to dry them out.

Baharat: When I cooked this I didn’t have a premixed version at home, so I crushed a tablespoon of coriander seeds, a few cloves, a few cardamom pods, and some black peppercorns, plus some cinnamon and chilli flakes in a pestle and mortar.

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Iraqi potato chaps are the ultimate snack - Mada Masr
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