All posts by SoshaRuark

Plain Dishes (Sawadhij), Raihaniyya (Aromatic Herbs w/Meatballs)

Raihaniyya (Aromatic Herbs w/Meatballs)

November 22, 2009 SoshaRuark 1 Comment

Now by this time you may be thinking, “Hey, you’ve done a LOT of meatballs!” and you’d be right, I have done quite a few meatball dishes. There is a reason meatballs are well documented in favored dishes. Meatballs were a way to say “I, and my house, have become well enough off that we can spend that extra 2-3 hours taking perfectly good meat, pound it flat, add expensive spices and roll the tasty treat of meat into bite sized balls; all for YOU, our favored guest.” Meat was a luxury in period times due and meat balls even more so. As for me making meatballs, well I had some ground hamburger and a new recipe to try out.

Raihaniyya

(Aromatic Herbs with Meatballs)

Translation:

Its recipe is that you cut up fat meat small and boil it in water. Then put dainty meatballs in it and a handful of peeled chickpeas. When it is nearly done, take half as much spinach as the meat and cut it up small with the knife and half boil it. Then throw it on the meat, and adjust its salt and spices. If there remains some water in it, let it go away. Put as much melted fat of fresh tail as it will bear on it, and a scraped stick of Chinese cinnamon, and leave it until it becomes done in the fat and is completely done. Then reduce its fire, and it settles and is taken up.

Ingredients:

1 lb stew meat (beef, venison, or lamb) 1 lb of ground meat (beef, venison or lamb)

1 tsp ea. Pepper, ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon

(Alternate spices to add would be black anise seeds, hot pepper seeds, garlic, dill, thyme)

¼ tsp saffron 1 onion 1 can garbanzo beans

1 Tbsp sesame oil (olive oil if sesame is not available)

2 cups chopped spinach (de-stemmed unless baby spinach)

Salt to taste 1 tsp thyme, cinnamon, salt

(Rodinson, pp. 348)

My Redaction:

I took a 1lb brick of hamburger meat and 1lb of cut up stew meat (that was cut into bite sized pieces). The meat does not specify being all of the same. A combination of meat chunks could have been used as well as a combination of pounded meat. The meat size should be bite sized are even slightly smaller. What is the use of making a really tasty dish if guests aren’t able to enjoy a bite sized piece but have to stop, take the piece of meat from their dish, cut the meat into a more manageable piece then put down the knife and chew? With the meat in bite sized pieces, eating is all one step of select, bite, swallow, then cheer the cook on to more dizzying heights of cooking extravaganzas!

Once the stew meat size has been established, the stew meat was added to a pot with water only 1/2 inch over the meat and boiled till almost done. Modern cooking really doesn’t like boiled meat as the idea that boiling renders the meat flavorless. If spices weren’t added or oil(s) etc then yest the meat would be flavorless; however in period boiling had the added benefit of not only cooking quickly, but cleanly as well. Any sand or nasty bits on the meat went to the scum which was always skimmed off leaving clean well cooked meat in a pot.

I had preselected and measured the spices, cut up the onion, and spinach.

The spices, the little white dish to the side of the garbanzo beans, were added to the ground meat, mixed well and small bite sized meatballs were then formed, except for the last 1tsp of thyme, cinnamon and salt. Those spices will be added to the overall dish at the end.

Once the meatballs had been formed, they were added into the boiling water with the other stew meat. Don’t worry, the meat should not fall apart at the touch of water; however you do want enough water to cover all the meat to get everything well cooked, then I added the garbanzo beans.

When the meatballs have been almost thoroughly cooked, I drained all the excess water out of the pot leaving the meat and the beans. Sesame oil was added to the pot before replacing on the stove. The remaining spices; 1 tsp thyme, cinnamon, salt, were then added as well as the onions and chopped up spinach. The recipe calls for tail fat yet sesame oil was used in substitution. I’ve written before on the extreme muttiness of tail fat and how I’m avoiding that extreme at this time.

This dish smells wonderful…and tastes excellently! This is a colorful tasty warm dish that is fairly healthy in regards to the modern diet. I would suggest serving the dish with either saffron rice or even over a bed of spinach.

Patina De Piris (Pear Pudding), Roman Sweets

Patina De Piris (Pear Pudding)

November 15, 2009 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Patina de Piris

Pear Pudding

The original recipe is a bit sparse on direction. This is one of those recipes where you really need to know what to do in the kitchen…but once you know what you are doing…the sky is the limit on how to blend these ingredients together for a most wonderful tasty treat!

Translation:

A pear patina: grind boiled and cored pears with pepper, cumin, honey, passum, garum, and a bit of oil.

Flower, pg. 109./Herklotz, pg. 172-173

*Passum: a sweet raison wine. (If Passum is not available either to buy or made, use a sweet mead or rose hip wine. The main feature to remember is that you want a sweet dessert wine to compliment the pear taste.)

Ingredients:

5 pears (Peeled and poached) 1/3 – 1/2 cup of honey

1 tsp ea of ground pepper, cumin and fish sauce

1 C. sweet wine 2 eggs 1 C. cream

1tsp olive oil

My Redaction:

When I first read this recipe, translated the boiled pears as to be poached. Roman’s loved their cooking far to much to just “boil” in water if wine was to be had on hand. So with that in mind, I took 5 Bartlet pears (very firm) peeled, cored then poached in mead.

Now these pears were allowed to steep for about 5 hours in the mead for yummy maximum goodness (and I was crazy busy after I had finished poaching them. So I turned of the stove and let them steep…a loooong time.)

After the pears were removed from their decedent mead bath (this is a Roman dish…and what is Rome with out a decedent bath some where?!), I mashed the pears into a rough consistency and added the spices, honey and wine.

Now you may be going at this point…Fish Sauce!!! in a dessert!!! Ewwww. Now now…don’t judge. Try this once WITH the sauce. It really makes the dish. Like all dishes that have fish sauce, a little will do wonders…don’t go overboard or yes the dish will taste of fish. As the saying goes, “A dab will do you!”.

Now this is the mashed pears with all of the spices, honey and wine. The pudding consistency will depend on how much or how little wine is used and eggs are added. I like my pear pudding a bit on the wet side. When I reach for a ladle of this sweetness, I have extra juice. Just the perfect amount to add short bread cookies to, for sopping up the excess. If you prefer a dryer pudding (one that is firm and not dripping with extra wine sweet spiciness, cut the wine by half and add an extra egg.

Once a consistency is decided upon, pour the pudding into your pottery dish (or pudding dish) and cook till golden on top.

I had a little extra browning on the edges here while waiting for the center to firm up a bit. Keep an eye on the pudding through out the cooking so that over cooking (or even burning) does not occur.

Now I eat this with candle light and a spoon in a hot tub. Pfft…ok I would if I had the hot tub and the time to light the candles! This dish is a sweet rich confection that is just amazing. I might suggest serving shortbread cookies on the side as a way to cut the rich sweetness of this, but then again everything goes with shortbread cookies and pear pudding.

Minutal Ex Praecoquis (Pork and Apricot Fricasee), Roman Meats

Minutal Ex Praecoquis (Pork and Apricot Fricasee)

November 13, 2009 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Minutal Ex Praecoquis

Pork and Apricot Fricasee

When I first started to do redactions, I adored doing Roman foods. Now don’t get me wrong, the Romans did many things very well, cooking being one of them. It is not my first cooking love but a wonderful stand by for those days when I need that little indulgence that Medieval ME just can’t and wont give me. And by that…I mean, pork!!! Yummy tasty piggy! Err…I’ll get to the recipe now.

Translation:

1st translation: In a pot, put oil, garum, and wine; chopped dried Ascalionian onion, and dice cooked pork shoulder. When all these things are cooked, grind pepper, cumin, dried mint, and dill; moisten with honey, garum, passum, a bit of vinegar, and the cooking juice; mix. Add pitted apricots, bring to a boil, and ehat until cooked. Theicken with crumbled tracta, sprinklw with pepper, and serve.

2nd translation: Put in the saucepan oil, liquamen, wine, chop in dry shallot, add diced shoulder of pork cooked previously. When all this is cooked pound pepper, cumin, dried mint, and dill, moisten with honey, liquamen, passum, a little vinegar, and some cooking-liquor; mix well. Add the stoned apricots. Bring to the boil, and let it boil until done. Crumble pastry to bind sprinkle with pepper and serve.

(Apicius 170/Flower, pg. 115/Herkotz, pg. 67)

Ingredients:

2 Tbs olive oil 2 tsp garum (fish sauce)

½ cup wine

3 shallots/1 onion or 4 Tbs dried onion

1 lb cubed pork ½ tsp pepper

1 tsp cumin 1 tsp dried mint

1 tsp dill 2 Tbs honey 2 Tbs vinegar

My redaction:

The original recipe called for pork shoulders. Now a quick note on Roman cooking. Roman cooks liked to substitute, like mad. Must have been the lead in the waterways. Actually it was probably the fact that if item a was not on hand then item b would have to do, so new and improved recipes were always being formed, written, eaten and extolled about. So here I am, with out pork shoulder but I do have some excellent boneless pork ribs. What is a cook to do! Well I cut those riblets up into bite sized chunks and boiled them to cook into tenderized tasty morsels!

In a pan I poured in a bit of fish sauce (substituting for the original liquamen), wine (I had a 7 year old bottle of home made mead on hand…though I have used home made rose hip wine as well), chopped onion, and the cooked pork.

I let the meat, onions and liquids simmer for a few minutes (roughly 5-10) then I added the spices with honey and a touch of vinegar. The vinegar is helpful in cutting the fish sauce’s salty fishy taste to a mellow slightly salty unique flavor. Trust me on this one. The fish sauce is a necessity and as long as it’s not over done in the dish the vinegar with a touch of honey mellows out the strong flavor to an excellence hard to find in today’s regular pork dishes! I also added another 1/2 of mead with the chopped apricots. I like the taste of mead and apricots with pork.

Now here is where I and the translation part ways. I did not want to add crumbled bread crumbs or pastry as I like the pork and apricot stew as a dry soup and not a breaded meat dish. The original translation can be done with bread or with out. I choose to go with out and I liked it!

Plain Dishes (Sawadhij), Stuffed Chicken Skin (Franken Chicken)

Franken Chicken

November 12, 2009 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Stuffed Chicken Skin

(also known as Franken Chicken)

This recipe was done out of curiosity. I mean really how often do you go to a dinner party and say “OMG…that chicken is a STUFFED chicken?! ” In period for a really excellent high end dinner this is exactly what they did. They made castles out of pastry and sugars, meat dishes with out meat (Romans’ were famous for this) and re-stuffing a chicken skin or a pig skin was nothing. This type of over the top cooking showed how refined and well to do the host was. This was known as “conspicuous” quality of creation.

Translation from Wusla:

There are a couple of varieties:

First Recipe: Take a chicken, scald it with boiling water and do not split either it’s belly or it’s crop. Push a meat skewer (mirwad) into its neck between the skin and the meat and use the skewer to separate the two. Blow hard into the neck (orifice) to detach all the skin from the meat. Whenever you find a little piece still attached (to the skin) which will not be freed by the blowing, use the skewer to detach it. Then use a thread to anchor the skin to the leg bones and split the bird along its back (from) the tail to the base of the neck. Remove the meat, leaving the leg bones including the thigh bones, in position. Likewise cut the wing tendons inside the skin. Stuff with rice, meat, chickpeas and onions, chopped as for stuffed trip (sakhatir). The wings are left as they are (their meat) not being separated from (their) skin, so as to complete the illusion of a (real) chicken. The skin is sewn back together and the neck is attached firmly…also being sewn up. Cook in water with stuffed tripe. This can also be fried afterward, if desired, or it can be left to finish cooking in the water.

2^nd recipe: With a stuffing of pounded meat as described abofe: take the meat of a chicken prepared as above and that of another chicken, leaving a skin wich can accommodate the meat of both chickens. Cook in water and then pound thoroughly in a mortar. Place in a cooking pot with a little chicken fat and sesame oil, some olive oil, hot seeds and parsley leaves and fry until the meat is golden. Add some minced onions and some mint. When the stuffing is cooked, fill the chicken skin with it, sew up and secure firmly at the base of the neck, after replacing the sternum in its proper place in the breast so as to give the impression of a real chicken. Cook in water, then fry and place any remaining stuffing with the chicken.

(Medieval Arabic Cookery, Rodinson, pp. 162)

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken 1 onion ¼ cup fresh parsley (or 2 tbs dried)

1 Tbs sesame oil, olive oil and chicken fat, 1 Tbs mint 1 Tbs dried peppers

1 tsp salt (or to taste).

My redaction:

When teaching classes on how to do Middle Eastern or Roman redaction, I can not stress enough on the necessity to read and re-read the instructions several times. The first read through is to get a feel for the ingredients. The second read through is a better understanding of HOW a dish was put together. In this case…how a dish was disassembled then reassembled.

I took a fully thawed fryer and scalded in boiling water for 30 seconds. The scalding tightens the skin, which helps with the skin removal process. Do not fool yourself on this part. The skin is still paper thin and extremely fragile…the scalding just helps tighten it up a bit; this does not make the skin impervious to damage.

I inserted a metal skewer, one I had laying around for kabob’s, into the neck and started to gently separate the skin from the meat by severing the connecting tissue between the two. I did not blow on the skin. (Even though the chicken was well rinsed prior to the scalding, I am not willing to put my lips on what is still mostly raw chicken!) Remove the tail of the chicken if this is included on your fryer. I was not particularly graceful in the skin removal as I would have liked; there were several holes in the skin by the time I was done.

As you can see the skin looks properly deflated. Rather embarrassed in fact as if I had caught the skin just stepping out of a hot tub. (I know…I just couldn’t help myself on that one!)

The redaction calls for not splitting either the breast or crop area, which is the front of the bird. I had to split the chicken skin along the back as there was no other way to remove the skin from the meat no matter how much skewering or blowing was done. Now here is the tricky part, and a little change to the original recipe. I decided on my first try to keep the wings but do away with the legs. The original recipe calls for the leg bones and wings (with meat) to remain attached to the skin with thread attaching the skin to the legs. Then the leg and wing joints are severed at the body with thread connecting the bottom leg skin to the bottom leg bone, while all the meat was removed carefully to leave the skin intact . This bird was NOT going to be able to do any running when all the stuffing and cooking was done! The theory was that the meat stuffing would refill the leg skin with the leg bones giving shape and definition. Knowing my own limitations for not renting the skin further…I just took the legs off but left the wings.

At this point there was a skin (see above picture) and a very naked bird waiting to be stripped of meat and bones. I took every scrap of usable meat from the chicken and ground it. The redaction calls for “pound thoroughly in a mortor”. I believe this was to render the chicken meat much like ground hamburger, making it easier for cooking then re-stuffing into our skin.

I had all the ingredients on hand and added a bit of salt.

The redaction calls for 2 oils and 1 fat. Sesame oil, olive oil and chicken fat. I had chicken fat on hand (I save the fat from roasted chicken, roughly a cup rendered per roasting) as there are many really good redaction recipes that call for throwing a pudding under a chicken and letting the chicken fat drip into the pudding pan. So save that grease because you never know when the next wonderful recipe will call for a Tbsp or two.

I went with the 2nd redaction as I did not have any cooked rice on hand but I did have onions and parsley from the garden readily available. The 2nd recipe calls for the meat of another bird. I didn’t find this necessary; however if I had actually left the leg skins attached it might have been.

The next step in the redaction calls for throwing the meat into boiling water for skimming. I don’t have to worry about sand, dirt or impurities having collected on my chicken meat so I skipped straight to the “Place in a cooking pot with a little chicken fat and sesame oil, some olive oil, hot seeds and parsley leaves and fry until the meat is golden”. Just like that…then add the chopped onion and mint till the onions are translucent. Take a taste and then add salt.

This redaction could go on any table, for dinner and do a cook proud as it is VERY tasty; however we now get to the complicated messy but interesting part!

While the meat was frying and the onions sauteing in the really heady oil mixture, take a bit of thread (I used a sturdy quilting thread…hey I had it on hand!) and sew up any rents that were made in the skin while removing. The correct thing to do for the chicken skin is to also sew up the neck and back and leaving the bottom opened for stuffing. Unfortunately for me…Murphy and his law showed up and my plans were slightly re-arranged on what should have been done to what could be done.

Keep an eye on the chicken meat while stitching up the skin!! When everything is finished cooking, take the meat and spices and let them cool till you can handle the mixture with your hands. Once the meat can be handled commence stuffing your sewn up skin. Do not over stuff. Any meat that is left over will be used around the stuffed cooked chicken, so as to not go to waste.

This is the stuffed skin after Mr. Murphy showed me that I should have sewn everything up tight prior to stuffing (NOT after) and that the belly/crop skin was so very thin that flipping the bird on to it’s back to hide the stitches was no longer an option (as the skin would split, spilling all the stuffing out).

The next step calls for boiling the stuffed skin then frying. My poor bird was not up for boiling. The skin had not been sewn up tight enough to be water tight so I opted to bake instead. I placed the bird very gently into a pottery chicken roaster (as small casserole dish would work as well) and popped the naked stuffed chicken into the oven at 350 degrees till the wings were thoroughly cooked and the skin was a nice golden brown.

There will be chicken grease at the bottom of the clay pot, as well as a little of the excess oils from cooking the meat. In period a roasting chicken’s grease was used in puddings and other dishes. It would not be going out on a limb by much to say that throwing either couscous or rice at the bottom of the clay pot prior to cooking is out of bounds, adding a wonderful rich meaty/fattiness (you NEEDED those calories in period) to a bland but satisfying carb.

While this looks likes Frankenstein dinner…it’s a very tasty treaty. I am sure that the dinner parties thrown by the sultans and caliphs had cooks who could get a chicken naked in under 3 minutes with out huge tears, I’m afraid at this point this redaction for looks gets a C – while the taste gets an A +!

Makabib al-Yuhud (Jewish Meatballs)

Makabib al-Yahud Meatballs in the style of the Jews

November 6, 2009 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Makabib al-Yahud

(The meatballs of the Jews)

This recipe starts with lean meat. The meat is not described as being kosher. Kosher is (per Wikipidea) “…in regard to land beasts (Hebrew:Behemoth), Deuteronomy and Leviticus both state that anything which chews the cud and has a cloven hoof would be ritually clean, but those animals which only chew the cud or only have cloven hooves would be unclean.^[8]^[9] The texts identify four animals in particular as being unclean for this reason – the hare, hyrax, camel, and pig — although the camel both ruminates and has two toes, while the hare and hyrax are coprophages rather than ruminants; the latter issues have been discussed by many, including the recent book on the subject by Rabbi Natan Slifkin^[10].”

This clears up a little on the Kosher part (not knowing this prior to the redaction of this recipe), which means that rabbit, camel, hyrax, and pig would not be acceptable meats for this dish if this were to be served to a person following strict Kosher foods.

When this recipe was written, the writer did not say that the meat was halal. Now Halal meat is meat that is acceptable for eating under Islamic law. The assumption is that the meat would have been bought in the market (or slaughtered on the farm) according to Quranic verse.

So this recipe if a redaction is for an Islamic eater can include that of hare or camel but not pork, or meat of a predator (so for those living in Texas also known as Ansteorra…no coyote). The meat must not be carrion (always a sound advice for what not to eat) or that has been killed by strangulation, gored, beaten, killed by a fall, or killed in name of another other then Allah.

So on to a recipe given to us by an Islamic scripe who had dinner with a Jewish host and thought highly of the meatballs!

Translation:

Boil lean meat after pounding it fine. Then take it out and pound it again, and remove the tendons. Then pound pistachio meats, Chinese cinnamon and peppers, each separately, and like wise salt, and cut up parsley, mint and celery leaf. Then break eggs and beat them, and add the meat and ingredients sufficiently, then fry it and turn it over in sesame oil, and it comes out most excellent.

Ingredients:

1 lb hamburger meat (or ground meat of an acceptable nature)

2 Tbs ground pistachios (unsalted)

1tsp ea of mint, parsley, celery leaf

½ tsp ea of salt, ground peppercorns, cinnamon

1 egg

1 Tbs sesame oil

My Redaction:

I used hamburger meat (10% or less of fat) as the main meat basis. My reasoning on the ground beef is that it is widely available, if I had had venison on hand I would have used that instead being a HUGE venison fan. Turkey could probably have been used as well as any other good ground meat depending on the cooks choice and taste. I skipped the boiling of the meat as the hamburger was pretty tender already. Originally meat was boiled to tenderize as the animals were probably a lot tougher then the grain feed meats seen in modern times. For those curious, no…I was not going to hand grind 1 lb of beef. Some things just need to be done by machines!

I set the meat in a bowl then added the pistachios that had been roughly chopped then pounded fine with a mortar and pestle (per the recipe these too were ground assuming finely ground), the egg and the spices. The egg is used as a binding agent for the meat as lean meat does not hold together as well as a fattier grind.

After everything was combined together well meatballs were rolled out. I made mine smaller then a golf-ball but larger then a hazelnut. Some recipes call for meatballs the size of hazelnuts, which aren’t that big while others do not specify at all. I choose to stick to a comfortable bite sized portion.

The meatballs were then fried in a pan with sesame oil till done.

The recipe specifically says sesame oil. Sesame oil is very tasty and there are several varieties. The dark sesame oil leaves a very heavy oily/nutty taste while the lighter sesame oils leave a roasted nut taste. The varieties are some what in order to using extra virgin olive oil to regular olive oil. The darker the oil the more pronounced the sesame oil taste.

These are actually very good on their own. I also really liked them with a yogurt/garlic dip made with Labayniyya (meat (balls) with yogurt). The traditional dinner or lunch probably would have included either rice or couscous, vegetables (fried spinach is never wrong for meat dishes) and a flat bread used to scoop every possible bite up.

Al-Madira Meat and Leeks, Meat Porridges (Hara'is) and Oven Dishes (Tannuriyyat)

Al-Madira (Meat and Leeks)

October 25, 2009 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Al-Madira

(Meat and Leeks)

This translation is one of my favorites, a warm rich thick yogurt meaty dish that has wonderful flavors. A great winter or fall type of dish. It’s not quite chicken soup for the soul but it does make a person go “Mmmm…comfy now!”

Translation:

Cut p fat meat medium and leave it in the pot with a little salt and water to cover. And when it is nearly done, throw big green onions on it and big Syrian Leeks, washed and with their leaves cut off. When it is done and the water has decreased, throw spices on it and adjust the salt. Then take it out of the pot and put it in another vessel, and take the water from the pot and throw yogurt on it as needed. And when it boils well, add already prepared melted tail fat, with the onions and leeks which have been taken up. Throw in a scraped stick of Chinese cinnamon, and it settles and is taken up…Throw in saffron and add sugar to it, and it comes out good.

Medieval Arab Cookery p.321

Ingredients:

2.5 lb beef/venison/goat or chicken cubed

3 leeks sliced

3 cups water (or enough to cover the meat)

1 small onion diced

½ tsp cumin, coriander, cinnamon, turmeric, saffron, and black caraway seeds (optional)

2 C yogurt

salt to taste

1 Tsp granulated table sugar

Optional: (Cariadoc makes this suggestion for chicken)

½ lemon or ¼ cup lemon juice ½ C fresh mint

Al-Baghdadi p. 41/6 (A Miscelleny)

I did this redaction following the techniques of the original while still incorporating a bit from Master Cariado’s suggestion.

My Redaction:

Here is a compilation of all the ingredients in one picture.

I cubed my meat (this time chicken). The meat used is 10 chicken thighs (a very rough equivalent to one full chicken. I then placed the chicken into a pot and covered with water.

When the chicken was mostly done I added 1/2 the onions and 1/2 the leeks. The remaining leeks and onions I sauteed in a pan with olive oil (sesame oil would work just as well to add a nutty taste).

The original translation says to add prepared tail fat with onions and leeks. Tail fat is fat from the tail of a type of sheep. This is a VERY strong mutton taste. If you ever have had mutton and prefer your mutton in small quantities, don’t add tail fat. If you LOVE mutton go to a meat market and ask for sheep tail fat and use it like you would bacon. /shudder

The leeks were cut below the start of the leaves then sliced lengthwise and cut into smaller pieces. This is for easier washing and rinsing of dirt that might have collected in the growing layers of the leeks.

After the leeks and onions have turned soft, I added spices then taste if additional salt is needed.

The pot is left to simmer for a final round of water reduction. After the water has reduced a bit more, I turn off the burner and add the yogurt, mint, sugar, sauteed onions and leeks. (The original translated recipe says to remove the dry soup to another vessel, I opted to turn off the stove instead).

I serve this either by itself or over brown rice to help sop up the extra juices. Pita bread could serve the same purpose for the sopping up. Couscous is very period for a carb/filler for an added accompaniment.

Before serving take one final taste just to make sure you have enough salt or need to add a touch extra!

Hummus Kasa, Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions, Vegetarian Dishes (Sawadhij)

Hummus Kasa

October 22, 2009 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Hummus Kasa

Period hummus is very hearty. This is not the usual 5 ingredients and smooth hummus that many are use to today. Period hummus walks into a room and demands the best spot on the table because it can stand on it’s own as a meal!

Translation:

Take chickpeas and pound them fine after boiling them. Then take vinegar, oil, tahineh, pepper…mint, parsley dry thyme, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, Ceylon cinnamon, toasted caraway, dry coriander, salt, salted lemons and olives. Stir it…

Medieval Arab Cookery p. 383.

Ingredients;

1 can chickpeas (roughly blended…unless you reaaaaly want to chop them by hand)

1 C tahineh

1/3 C vinegar

1/3 C olive oil

1/2 tsp each of dried mint, thyme, cinnamon, caraway, coriander, salt, black pepper

1 tsp parsley

¼-1/3 C walnuts, almonds, pistachios (roughly chopped)

1 preserved lemon (salted and stored in olive oil)

My Redaction:

Once all the ingredients are assembled the rest is pretty easy. The nuts are roughly chopped, the garbanzo beans have been blended, the spices assembled, oil and vinegar assembled, and the preserved lemon roughly chopped as well.

Once everythign is on hand, put into a bowl and stir. Today’s palate may prefer the smoothness of everything blended into a paste however that is not quite period. Things were a tad more chunky. I put all these ingredients into a bowl then stirred everything till the tahini was well blended. Why did I base my blending on the tahini? Well…try string peanute butter into a mix. If the peanut butter is not mixed well there are lumpy parts instead of a tasty blend of spices.

Here is the blended lumpy full meal hummus with a little olive oil and mint. It’s happy to see you!

Laymun Marakibi (Salted Lemons)

October 22, 2009 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Laymun Marakibi

(Salted Lemons)

There are a couple of ways to make this. The period translations read:

1st Translation:

Pickled lemons are done in the manner thus; Slice lemons. Sprinkle with salt. Drain of juice. Place in water or oil.

2^nd Translation:

The lemon is split lengthwise and then filled with coarse salt. It is left thus for two nights and then kept in lemon juice covered with oil.

(Rodinson, pp. 144)

Ingredients:

10-15 lemons

½ cup salt

Oil or water to cover

Glass jar

My Redaction:

The first way to do this is to cut lemons in either round or length wise. When doing round cuts I remove the ends. When doing lenthwise cuts I leave the ends and the seeds (these will either be ground up if using a blender or pop out on their own if hand chopping).

Quartered…ok sixes or rounds. Either way is perfectly except-able. My preference is for rounds though I do not get as many pieces visually.

Once the lemons have been cut, place them in a large bowl. Toss the salt and the lemons together till all the slices are coated then leave to “juice” for 48 hours (roughly). after the salt has had it’s purgative effect, rinse off under water, draining the excess water thoroughly. Place the slices in a clean jar and cover with either water or olive oil. Do NOT cover with both. Really! As the old saying goes water and oil do not mix (and this would just be baaad for the lemons).

I used a jar I had on hand (artichoke hearts were really tasty!) for the lemon rounds and an olive oil.

Which ever method is chosen make sure the lemons are covered completely. The covering of the lemons, even though very acidic already, is necessary as there is the potential of mold growing on the fruit. Once the fruit is completely covered the chances is cut down dramatically.

If slices should become covered in mold, simply pull the offending pieces out of the oil or water and top off with a little more liquid. It has been my experience that the fruit can stay preserved this way for 1 to 2 years. (This may not be the average in every household) As with all non heated/sealed foods be cautious in usage. If you suspect some thing is off do not use.

Kunafa

Kunafa (Shredded Dough Pastry)

October 14, 2009 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Kunafa

(Shredded dough pastry)

The original translation is a bit tricky on this recipe. This is what I call a reverse redaction as the original I found is actually a modern day recipe with cream cheese and orange water as part of the ingredients. Here is a brief history and descriptions of the original types of shredded dough pastries.

Translation:

The original commentary is –Batter is dribbled onto the warmed metal through perforations. The fine ‘pasta’ that results is dried, rather then cooked, on the sheet,…to make a pastry, the kunafah dough must be baked with clarified butter and perhaps a filling such as nuts. This was then ‘drowned’ in almond oil and syrup and considered to be as fine as grasshoppers wings.

(Rodinson, pp. 223).

There is no exact recipe for this though there is a modern day recipe that I have crossed with a pastry dessert called qata’if.

Quata’if – This is of various kinds. Stuffed qata’if are baked into long shapes, stuffed with almonds and fine ground sugar, rolled round, and laid out: then sesame-oil, syrup, rose-water and fine ground pistachios are thrown on.

Judhab al-Qata’if – Take ata’if stuffed with almonds and sugar and fried; arrange oin a dish between two thin cakes, and set under a chicken. Between every two layers put sugar, and almonds, peeled chopped fine, and scented asi n tuffing. Pour on sesame-oil or if preferred fresh mil with more sugar. When cooked and fragrant, remove. Some, instead of almond and almond oil, use walnut and walnut oil (Rodinson, pp. 81, 87)

Quata’if is described as type of pancake. However the Kunafa was not a pancake but did use shredded dough or dough cut into thin slices. Rose-water, sugar, milk, eggs, honey (for the syrup) or date syrup is common to both recipes. The modern day recipe however calls for the use of orange-water which was not used in period and has been omitted. This recipe also calls for small curd cheese and a soft cheese. With the Quata’if (Judhab) calling for milk and Persian shiraz (firm yogurt) as well as numerous soft cheeses available this would not be a hard stretch to turn milk into yogurt to be used.

With a reverse redaction the ingredients were changed to reflect a more historic types of ingredients.

Ingredients:

2.5 sticks melted butter

1 lb Kataif dough

½ cup sugar

8 oz hard Persian yogurt or cream cheese softened

1 cup feta or goat cheese

2 eggs

1 cup ground pistashios

½ cup honey

1 ½ cups honey OR date syrup

1 ½ cup water

¼ cup lemon juice

2 tsp rose-water

½ cup almond oil

My Redaction:

When first doing this recipe, I combined the cheeses with the eggs and the ½ cup of honey, until smooth.

This is a bit messy but fun!

I set this aside to work on the dough. Take the Kataif dough, making sure this is at room temperature and in a large bowl, I poured the melted butter over it. Then I worked the butter through the dough, trying for an even coating as much as possible. When the dough has been as best coated with butter, I place half of the dough in a greased dish.

If you love buttery dough this stuff is awesome. I swear I consumed at least 1/2 a cup it was soooo tasty!

For those wondering, while I “could” maybe have made this with either rolled out dough and a knife to slice small strands of the rolled dough or even possibly using a pastry machine, I decided the best course of action that would NOT drive me bonkers while trying to make this was just to buy the dough at the store. This can be found (for me) in a local HEB store though I believe the local Indian or Phoenician Bakery also carries this pastry dough also.

Once the bottom layer of dough is down I pour on the egg, cheese and honey mixture. I then layer the sugar and pistachios onto this

“But where are the pistachio and sugar?” You might ask. Well, those were forgotten at the time of taking pictures. (I was in the midst of cooking 3 dishes and taking several pictures and forgot the sugar and pistachio parts…but never fear they were added!).

After the sugar and nuts are layered, I add the remaining dough on top. This is then baked till the dough is a golden brown on top.

While the dish is cooking I placed into a bowl the remaining honey, water, rose-water and sesame oil and mix thoroughly. This will look like a HUGE amount. Do not fret, all of the syrup will be absorbed. Really. All of it will be come one with the creamy salty sweet goodness that is about to come out of your oven!

Once the main dish is finished cooking and cooled (15-20 minutes) I poured the hot syrup and oil mixture on top. This is allowed to absorb into the dish until there is no excess left. Once the syrup has been absorbed into the dish, it is ready to serve.

This series of photos were taken with a honey mixture. The date syrup mixture adds a dark hue to the over all pastry as well as a very different taste. I will suggest making a full batch of dough and cheese then doing a half and half set of the pastry using two different pans for each type to cook in. I have also made this recipe using a miniature cheese cake pan (really cook looking when finished baking. Again sorry no picture. Yes I was in a hurry that night too!) I have also used miniature bunt cake pan to make miniature servings. These didn’t turn out nearly so well as the miniature cheese cake pan but they were still fun to make and even to eat!

Hubaishiyya (Meat w/Carrots and Raisins)

Hubaishiyya (Meat with carrots and Raisins)

October 10, 2009 SoshaRuark Leave a comment

Hubaishiyya

(Meat with Carrots and Raisins)

This dish can be made with any type of meat i.e. beef, venison, duck etc. I chose to use chicken as it was conveniently in my freezer when I came across this recipe.

For the original translation:

The way to make it is to cut up fat meat medium then throw it in the pot with a little salt and water to cover. Boil it and take of its scum. When it is nearly done, throw on chopped up onions, which you have washed with warm water and salt, and peeled carrots from which you have removed that which is inside them (viz. the woody core). Throw on dry coriander, cumin, cinnamon, mastic and pepper. Then take the necessary amount of black raisins and pound them fine, then macerate them by hand and strain them. Take two parts of their juice and one part of good sharp vinegar, and throw them in the pot. Pound some walnuts and macerate them with the mentioned juice, and throw them on it. Crumble bunches of dried mint onto the pot. Leave the pot on the fire to grow quiet and take it up, after wiping its sides with a clean cloth.

(Rodinson, pp. 318)

Ingredients:

8 chicken thigh 1 medium onion 2 cups carrots 1 tsp salt

½ tsp ea. Ground cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and pepper corns

1 cup walnuts 1 cup black raisins 2 tbs vinegar 2 tbs dried mint

(*Note: if using preserved raisins from the redaction, Zabb Wa-Nana, no extra vinegar, mint or cinnamon will be needed)

Redaction:

For the actual cooking part, I took the chicken cut into pieces (any meat cut into pieces will do) and placed the pieces into a pot and covered with water. I only covered 1 inch over the meat and added the salt.

This should be a thick, almost dry stew, not a soup. Think some thing that is thick enough to sop up with bread or scoop up with fingers. When the chicken was almost finished cooking I added the onions and carrots.

The carrots I could probably have used to cut smaller even though I matchsticked (roughly) the baby carrots used. As can be seen the stew is thickening well as part of the water has cooked off at this point. In period, some carrots were considered very woody to the tasty and the core was cut out to prevent a dish from having the harsh tasteless part of a carrot included. Most of today’s modern carrots do not suffer from this problem.

This stage of the dish cooked for 10 minutes or roughly when the onions were translucent. I took the cup of preserved raisins, set them into my Cuisinart and gushyfied them. Also known as pounded to a pulp. (Yes, I cheated this historic part. I was not about to spend 20 minutes pounding wet gushy raisins into a paste by hand. I will for pepper corns and mustard seeds but raisins are right out.) The raisins then the remaining spices into the dish. I added the walnuts as well which really thickened the soup up by quit a bit. Cook for 5-10 more minutes then serve with a side of rice or couscous and pita bread!

This is actually a little soupier then I really wanted however the dish was really good and makes a great winter time type of stew.

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