[Contents]

10 large artichokes

1 1/2 cups minced meat

1 cup minced onions

1/4 cup pine nuts

1 tsp. flour

2 tsp. lemon juice

2 tsp. butter

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

Water

Heat one cup samneh or other cooking fat well. Fry onions until yellow. Add meat, pine nuts, salt and pepper. Fry until meat is well cooked. Boil artichokes until tender. (Fifteen minutes under pressure.) Arrange them in a shallow pyrex dish. Stuff each with the meat mixture. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and lemon juice, and dot with butter. Mix flour with half a cup of water and pour into bottom of cooking dish. Bake in moderate oven until meat is well cooked. Simmer on top of stove if sauce seems excessive. Serve hot with rice.

(From Food from the Arab World Marie Karam Khayat and Margaret Clark Keatinge, Khayat's, Beirut 1959)