Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions, Pancakes (Quata'if) and Biscuts (Khushkananaj), Tiltin (Small Pasta Squares)

Tiltin (Small Pasta Squares)

April 25, 2010 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Tiltin

(Small Pasta Squares)

Translation:

Make a dough with flour, water, salt, and a little yeast. Knead energetically and stretch it out on a table; the layer of dough should be extremely thin. Using a knife, cut squares the size of two fingers and dry (them) in the sun. Keep to be used as needed.

Zaouali, pp. 118

Ingredients:

1 cup flour ½ tsp salt 1/3 cup water (more if necessary to moisten dough) 1 tsp yeast

Redaction:

The dough was made by combining the flour, salt, water and yeast.

Then rolled out to form a very thin dough, roughly 1/16 inch in height.

When I rolled out the dough, I originally had added a bit more water then intended and had to over flour the board from which the dough was rolled out on. The dough absorbed the extra flour with out detriment to the taste. So a well floured bored is needed and if necessary a little extra can be added to help the dough’s formation.

After the dough was rolled out and evened up a bit, two fingers in width

(roughly 1 inch squares) were measured and cut with a knife.

Some of the dough squares stuck to the knife, so I did try these with a pizza cutter and had better success. Sprinkling a little flour on the surface of the dough would also alleviate any sticking.

Once the squares were cut out,

cookie sheets were lined with parchment paper and a single layer of squares were placed there on. Note: The recipe will make roughly enough pasta to fill two cookie sheets.

I took the cookie sheets to sit in the sun to dry.

I found that the drying dough formed little air pockets on the under side (due to the yeast) so that the squares looked sort of like ravioli with out the stuffing. Very cute!

If you prefer non-puffed squares just prick the freshly rolled and cut squares with a fork. This will release any air building up from the yeast and warm sunny day working on the pasta. I didn’t know to do that on this batch but I sort of like the little pillow look of these!

When the squares were thoroughly dried, they were placed in a glass jar for later use in soups and stews which call for pasta.

Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions, Qarmush (Buttered Triangles, Sweetmeats (Halawat), Uncategorized

Qarmush Buttered Triangles

April 20, 2010 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Qarmush

(Buttered Triangles)

Translation:

Take a pound of flour and knead it with water and milk. You break two eggs in it, their yolks and whites, and knead it well. Spread finely milled starch under it and roll it out with the rolling pin. Splatter with clarified butter, fold it over two or three times and cut it into triangles and put them (aside). Put the frying pan on the fire and fry them – le the fire be quiet – until done and not browned. Throw them in honey and sprinkle them with sugar.

Rodinson, pp. 431

Ingredients:

3 C. Flour 2 eggs 1 stick of butter (salted)

½ cup of milk and ½ cup of water Sesame oil

Redaction:

Mix the ingredients together,

forming a stiff dough.

Roll out on a well floured board

until very thin, roughly 1/8 inch if possible.

Brush the dough with butter.

The original said to splatter, which you can. I just wanted a more even coating so I had a small cooking brush on hand and proceeded to smear butter over rolled out dough!

Once the dough is well buttered, fold it over like so.

Brush once more and fold once again.

Cut the folded dough into triangles.

This batch of Qurmush is waaaay to thick. The layers need to be about half this size. The thicker the layers the harder to cook with out browning.

Take a frying pan, liberally coated in sesame oil, and place 2-3 triangles into the pan. Turn the burner on low.

Pay close attention to the cooking, as a golden color is acceptable but not a brown.

The thinner the dough the quicker the cook time (and easier to burn).

Once the triangles have been cooked through, pour honey on top of and sprinkle with sugar.

These were tasty even though a bit thick and chewy. If they were thinner they would be crispy and sweet. Eat them fast before then honey makes them chewy or if you like chewy desserts let them stand for a little bit with the honey and sugar topping!

Banquet dels Quatre Barres (2nd edistion), Esparechs (Fried Asparagus)

Esparechs (Fried Asparagus)

April 4, 2010 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Now I love asparagus, especially in spring when greens are craved. This recipe combines asparagus with butter and what a better combination can be had?

Esparechs

(Fried Asparagus)

Translation:

If you wish to eat asparagus, take them, and clean them, and parboil them. And when they are parboiled, flour them with wheat flour; and then put them in the paella, and fry them until they are cooked. And they go on platters. And whoever wishes, put vinegar on it.

(McDonald, pp. 19)

Ingredients:

Asparagus

1 C. wheat flour 2 Tbs salted butter ¼ C. red wine (or balsamic) vinegar

*McDonald suggest olive oil instead of butter and red wine vinegar – I liked butter and balsamic vinegar better, so cooked the asparagus accordingly.

Redaction:

The ingredients for this are pretty straight forward. Wheat flour, asparagus, and butter.

I took a large handful of asparagus and cut off the last 2-3 inches so that only the tender top 5 inches were left.

The ends are cut off as they are usually tasteless and woody. Not some thing even the best butter can remedy, so just remove them until you get to the green tasty parts!

I then placed the spears into water and let these be parboiled for 1 minute. After that the spears were drained.

Parboiling does a quick cook with out destroying. Note: do not over boil! Just a quick hot boiling bath for 1-2 minutes. to soften up the asparagus cell fibers and you are good to go for the frying! (well after draining off the water that is.

The wheat flour was spread out onto a small plate, where the individual spears were rolled.

After the spears were rolled in the wheat flour, 1 Tbs of butter was melted into a pan and half of the asparagus was fried until golden brown on all sides.

*hint: if you want to use 2 Tbs of butter per batch, don’t hesitate. There can almost never be to much butter where asparagus is concerned!

Then the cooked spears were removed onto a clean plate.

The last Tbs of butter was melted and the remaining asparagus was fried.

Once all the asparagus was cooked, a bowl with balsamic vinegar was placed to the side for easy dipping. These are excellent either plain or with vinegar!

This batch never made it out of the kitchen. I munched on these till they were all gone. So the word of warning is: if you like asparagus and are serving more then just yourself…make LOTS!

Judhaba (Apricot or Banana Savory Pudding), Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions, Puddings Baked under Meat (Jawadhib) and Puddings (Akhbisa)

Judhaba (Apricot or Banana Savory Pudding)

April 3, 2010 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

This is not your regular pudding. This is both a sweet/savory crusty pudding much like a cobbler made with chicken fat instead of butter. This sounds really weird…I mean who makes a pudding of chicken fat?! Well if you wanted as many calories as possible and butter wasn’t always available, you used the fat drippings from a hanging chicken (or duck) and made a really tasty sweet and savory full fat dessert!

Judhaba

Apricot or Banana Savory Pudding

Translation:

Apricot Judhaba:

Take some sweet and mature apricots; detach (the fruit) from the pit. (Mix it with sugar.) In a clean baking pan…spread out (a flat bread) and place the mixture of apricots and sugar on top. Cover this with another cooked flat bread. If you wish to add a bit of saffron , do so and sprinkle with rose water; then hang an excellent hen over (the dish), may it please God.

(Zaouali, pp. 82)

Banana Judhaba:

Take bananas that are fully ripe. Peel them and immerse them in fine samid sour dough, kneaded as for pancakes. Then take them up and leave on some thing woven. Boil sesame oil, fry the bananas, take them out and throw them in syrup. Them them up and throw them in pounded sugar, then arrange them in a tray with fin flat breads above and below. Hang fat chicken above.

(Rodison, pp. 411)

Ingredients:

2 cups fresh or dried apricots or 4 sliced bananas 1/3 cup sugar 1 pinch saffron

¼ teaspoon rose water flat bread

1 chicken or 1 cup chicken fat

Redaction:

When I did this recipe I used dried apricots as fresh was not available. Per several other recipes dried or preserved are acceptable substitutes (see recipe: Khaukyiyya [meat with plums]). I chopped up the apricots roughly so that there were still chunks and placed in a bowl. Once the apricots were chopped I then sprinkled on 1/3 cup of sugar and enough water to just cover the dried apricots. If I had been using fresh I would not have added water as fresh apricots would have generated enough moisture from being sugared.

When I decided to retry this recipe, I had the ingredients on hand for either bananas or apricots. I decided to try a half and half. I did not dip the bananas in flour then fry them as the 2nd recipe suggests. This would have made the bananas even more flavorful however I was running a little short on time, so I mixed the sugar and saffron together then poured 1/2 of the sugar onto the apricots and then the other 1/2 onto the bananas then set the two bowls of fruit to the side.

I made a quick flat bread dough using a bread recipe and divided the resulting dough into two balls.

The first ball I rolled out and placed on the bottom of a oiled tanjin.

Now the original recipe implies cooked flat bread. I did this the first time and ended up with a burnt offering instead of a tasty dessert. I have tried with and with out oiling the tajine and cooked or uncooked flat bread. I go with oiling the tajine and uncooked flat bread. There is much less burning of bread this way.

I then rolled out the other ball of dough, roughly shaped into a circle into the oven at 350 for 10 minutes (or until slightly golden brown on top).

While the second flat bread was cooking I divided the apricots and bananas onto the raw flat bread dough in the tajine.

These were then sprinkled with a little rose water.

The next step was to place the cooked flat bread on top of the fruit.

Here is where thinks get a little different. I did not have a hook from which to cook a chicken on while placing the fruit and flat bread underneath to catch the drippings. What I did do is place a chicken on top of the cooked flat bread so that all the fat would be caught, covered with the top of the tajine and cooked till done.

This is where a cup of chicken fat can be used instead of the whole chicken. If a cup of chicken fat is readily available, smear the fat on top of the cooked flat bread and bake the dish until the bottom layer is cooked (with out scorching) and the fat has been absorbed, roughly 30 minutes. For just chicken fat a tajine is not necessary, any regular baking dish will do. If using a whole chicken, cook the dish in a tajine until the chicken is thoroughly cooked, about 45 minutes to an hour. The chicken comes out extremely tender and moist while the pudding has absorbed the chicken fat for a rich one of a kind dessert.

The apricot side tastes a bit like peach cobbler with chicken while the banana side was strongly banana flavored with chicken. Sweet savory and very unforgettable!

Sosha Lyon's O'Rourk's Medieval Redactions English, Italian, Middle Eastern, Roman, Medieval Redactions and Recipes, Medieval Research Papers, Subtleties – Grill Mistress of the Pork

Roxalana's Redactions

Monthly Archives: April 2010

Tiltin (Small Pasta Squares)

Qarmush Buttered Triangles

Esparechs (Fried Asparagus)

Judhaba (Apricot or Banana Savory Pudding)

Sosha Lyon's O'Rourk's Medieval Redactions English, Italian, Middle Eastern, Roman, Medieval Redactions and Recipes, Medieval Research Papers, Subtleties – Grill Mistress of the Pork