Love koupes. They are, sort of, street food, though Cyprus doesn’t really run to as much traditional street food as one might wish. Presume that making them on a commercial scale involves some kind of simple press - think pierogies if that helps. But basically they’re a fine bulgur casing with enough liquid to hold it together stuffed with seasoned ground meat and onion filling and then deep fried. If that sounds like an acquired skill, I’m sure it is and can foresee a great deal more potential for disaster than with perogy making. So have read recipes but never tried making them. The other reason being a feeling that deep fried should be reserved for occasional street food eating - think falafel - so that deep fried doesn’t become a home habit. (And note that perogies in Poland are not traditionally fried let alone deep fried).
So when J suggests, in the spirit of the holiday season, that we stop at our nearest Zorba’s bakery for a couple of koupes I’m in favour. Bakery might not be the first place you’d expect to find them but you’d be wrong. Though koupes, as a plural, is not exactly what they have. They’re down to one koupa, or kubba as Zorba’s spells it. Well, it’s all transliteration anyway and some sounds have no precise English equivalent - hence the advertisement one Easter for hot gross buns. And, in fact the k in koupes is pronounced more like a hard g.
So one koupa with our supper. They exist in the North as well, though likely to be called bulgur köftesi and certain not to include pork. The ones we’ve had in the North were better but the comparison is unfair - they were handmade with love.
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