Finding myself with excellent lamb chops, I decided I needed to try a new dish.  I was skeptical at first due to the boiling of meat the recipe called for and the inclusion of jujubes and mastic.  Both of these spices are strongly overpowering if to much is included so add these sparingly!  This is an amazing dish with flavors that dance over the palate.  Try it once and you’ll be a fan!

Mishmishiya

(Fat Meat with Apricots)

Translation:

Take fat meat.  Boil it in a little water and take its scum away.  Take dried apricots and remove their pits and replace them with blanched almonds.  And when the meat is done, throw the apricots on it, and raisins, atraf al-tib, a stick of Chinese cinnamon, mint mastic, saffron and jujubes, and sweeten it with sugar and honey.  It comes out well. (Rodinson, pp. 356-357)

Ingredients:

4-6 lamb chops or 1 lb. cubed.

1/2 C. apricots

Enough almonds to stuff each apricot

1/4 C. raisins

1 tsp Chinese cinnamon, mint, and honey

1/16 ground mastic

4 jujubes

Pinch of saffron

Redaction:

Take your apricots and stuff them.  Then gather all your ingredients together in one spot.

Also I hate jujubes.  Note for one steak, I only had one squished jujube in the entire spice dish.  I consider jujubes to be the worst spice ever!  Use it in very small quantities! Otherwise your dish will taste like nothing more than jujubes and a hint of something else.  Don’t go overboard on the mastic.  It’s type of pine resin and also has a strong taste.  A little goes a very long way!

Take a deep frying pan and fill it half way up to the meat’s side.

Let the meat sit in the water for 4-5 minutes on each side.  Continually removing the scum as it surfaces (it won’t be much).

            While the meat is boiling, put the apricots and raisons to the side, then grind together all the spices except the honey.

            When the meat has been cooked on both sides and the water has been boiled away, remove it from the pan.  Sprinkle the ground spices over the meat,

scattering the dried fruit over the meat. Dribble the honey over that.

            My first thought on this recipe is that boiling meat is just blah!  I was pleasantly surprised at how tender and very juicy the meat came out.  The ground spices smelled amazing!  Even with the jujube and mastic, the saffron and cinnamon and mint blended with the others wonderfully.