Aleppo's famous sweet-sour kebab: small grilled or seared lamb meatballs finished in a glossy sauce of sour St Lucie cherries, served over torn flatbread with pine nuts and parsley. It exists almost nowhere outside Aleppine cooking and is a hallmark of the city's refined kitchen.
Also known as: cherry kebab, kebab karaz, kabab bil karaz, Aleppo cherry kebab, kebap karaz, kabab karaz, kebab bil karaz, sour cherry kebab
Watch it made
Ingredients
- 500 g finely minced lamb
- 1 tsp Aleppo seven-spice (or 1/2 tsp allspice plus a pinch of cinnamon)
- 1 tsp salt
- 400 g pitted sour cherries (fresh, frozen or jarred morello)
- 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
- 1-2 tbsp sugar, to taste
- 30 g butter or ghee
- 2 flatbreads or pita
- 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts and a handful of parsley
How to make it
- 1
Season the lamb with the seven-spice and salt and roll it into cherry-size meatballs — Aleppans match them to the fruit.
- 2
Sear the balls in butter until browned but not cooked through; lift out.
- 3
In the same pan, simmer the cherries, pomegranate molasses, sugar and a splash of water 10 minutes, crushing a third of the fruit against the side.
- 4
Return the meatballs and bubble gently 15 minutes, until the sauce turns glossy and clings.
- 5
Arrange over toasted flatbread squares, pour the cherries over so the bread stains crimson, and finish with pine nuts and parsley.
Pro tip: Real Aleppo karaz uses sour St Lucie cherries, so taste at the very end — the sauce should bite back a moment before it sweetens.
The story of Kabab Karaz
Kabab karaz is Aleppo's most famous dish and one of the most distinctive in the entire Middle East: small grilled lamb meatballs finished in a glossy sauce of sour St Lucie cherries, served over torn flatbread with pine nuts and parsley. It exists almost nowhere outside Aleppine cooking.
The cherries are specific — karaz here means the small sour mahleb cherry that grows around Aleppo, harvested in early summer and preserved as paste or juice for the rest of the year. The dish is seasonal in its fresh form and year-round in its preserved one, and it is the clearest expression of Aleppo's taste for sweet-sour meat.
The technique that defines it
The meatballs are small — cherry-sized, deliberately — and grilled or seared first so they take colour before they enter the sauce. The sauce is built separately from cherries cooked down with a little sugar and pomegranate molasses until it is thick, dark and genuinely sour rather than sweet.
The meatballs then simmer in that sauce for ten or fifteen minutes, absorbing it and releasing fat back into it, which is what gives the finished sauce its gloss. The balance is the difficult part: too much sugar and it becomes a dessert sauce, too little and it is harsh. It should read as savoury first with sourness behind it.
Choosing your ingredients
Sour cherries are the requirement — morello or the Middle Eastern sour varieties, fresh, frozen or as a preserved paste from a Syrian grocer. Sweet cherries do not work; the dish depends on acidity. Pomegranate molasses supports and sharpens where the cherries are not sour enough.
Lamb at 20 to 25 percent fat, minced fine, seasoned with allspice, cinnamon, salt and pepper, and rolled small. Day-old flatbread torn for the base. Pine nuts toasted in butter, and plenty of chopped parsley, are traditional and add the texture the dish otherwise lacks.
Mistakes that ruin it
Sweet cherries
The dish depends on sourness. Sweet cherries make a cloying sauce that no amount of correction fixes.
Too much sugar
It should be savoury first, sour second, sweet a distant third. Taste as you reduce.
Large meatballs
They should be cherry-sized so the ratio of meat to sauce works in every mouthful.
Skipping the bread base
The torn flatbread absorbs the sauce and is half the dish. Served over rice it is a different, lesser thing.
How it is served
Over torn flatbread in a wide dish, with toasted pine nuts and parsley scattered over. Yoghurt on the side. It is a celebration dish in Aleppo and a signature of the city's restaurants, served as a main rather than as part of a mezze.
Questions about Kabab Karaz
What kind of cherries are used?
Sour cherries — morello or the local Aleppine sour varieties, fresh in season and preserved as paste or juice the rest of the year. Sweet cherries do not work.
Where is kabab karaz from?
Aleppo, Syria. It is one of the city's signature dishes and is rarely found outside Aleppine cooking.
Should it taste sweet?
No. Savoury first, sour second. Sweetness should be a background note that balances the acid, not the dominant flavour.
Can I use pomegranate molasses instead of cherries?
It supports the sauce but cannot replace the cherries, which give the dish its colour, body and identity.
