Stuffed Tripe

Today this dish is the specialty of the northern city of Mosul. It is made of pieces of tripe stuffed with a mixture of ground/minced meat and rice, and simmered until tender, which takes hours. The naming of this delicious treat, qibbayat, goes back to the medieval practice of cooking the simple ma’ wa malh dishes (literally ‘water and salt,’ meat simmered in broth). These dishes were mostly cooked during hunting sessions. The resourceful cooks would decorate them with an imp