Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions

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This recipe came about as I was in the process of making lamb stock. I had lamb bones in the freezer that needed to be used so I tossed them in a crock pot and cooked for a day. My roommate, who is very pregnant, came home waxing enthusiastically about how good the soup smelled. She was in need of food and an ear so we talked as I worked on this recipe.

Hasa Aldaan

Lamb Soup

Translation:

Another recipe for the meat of mountain sheep: take it complete with bones and wash it well and, having added asafetida, onions, fresh ginger, salt, fresh greens and fresh coriander, cook it. Put in plenty of water. Add some pepper and lime juice and, when it is well cooked, take it off and either eat as it is or else flavor it with asafetida essence. (The Nimatnama Manuscript of the Sultans of Mandu, pp. 26)

Ingredients:

1 lb lamp with bones

1/2 onion

1/2 tsp asafetida

2 Tbs. fresh ginger chopped

1 tsp. salt (or to taste)

2 C. Spinach (or greens of your liking)

1 tsp ground Coriander or 1/4 C. chopped Cilantro

2 Tbs. lime juice

Redaction:

I took the broth with chunks of lamb, de-boning as I went, so that the lamb meat was shredding as I stirred.

I added spinach. Why spinach? Because that’s the greens I had on hand. You can use just about any greens found so don’t limit yourself to just one type. Try different flavors.

Because I was only cooking for two, I used half an onion. The ginger chopped down to a little more than expected but I love fresh ginger in soup so I kept the extra. I only had dried coriander on hand so that was what was used. If you have fresh, use that! The salt ended up being 2 tsp, being to my taste.

Here everything but the lime juice has been added and is simmering. Not boiling, simmering.

The lime juice was added at the end and give a nice bright flavor.

I liked this recipe. It’s more than meat, greens, salt and water. You get to play with the flavoring a little as you try different greens, with fresh or dried coriander

August 20, 2018 | No comments

This is a dish to try if you have a large volume of yogurt on hand and want to try a new dish. I think it’s ok. The flavors are good but I’ve had better yogurt dishes to be honest. I can’t say this is amazing but it is filling. Perhaps over noodles or rice it would be a bit better. Perhaps with a bit of cheese sprinkled over it as well.

This is obviously a very close relative to Al-Madira in name, but that’s about it. There are different spices and cooking style, enough so that these are barely kissing cousin recipes..

Madira

(Meat in Yogurt with Leeks)

Translation:

A pound of meat, four pounds of yoghurt. Put them with curdled milk, a shifaya of leeks, a quarter shifaya of green onions – and if the onions are green, they can be dispensed with – and a stick of ginger, a stick of Ceylon cinnamon, both whole and the weight of a quart dirham of whole mastic. Then you put the yoghurt in the pot, and when it boils and sticks to the ladle, throw the meat in. When it boils tow or three times, cut up the leeks, which have been split, and throw them in. And when the leeks boil, cut up the onions and throw them in with the mastic, Ceylon cinnamon and ginger. When it all smells good and boils, throw in the mint, half a bunch. Its fire should be gentle, so that it smells good and binds; if it doesn’t bind, throw in it the quantity of half an ounce of heart starch or a handful of rice. When the yoghurt is nearly done, take it down. (Rodison, pp. 327.)

Ingredients:

1 lb meat (beef or lamb) cut up.

4 lbs yogurt

1/2 C curdled milk (sour milk?)

1 leek

4 green onions

1 stick of ginger (do not chop!)

1 stick cinnamon or 1/2 tsp ground

1/4 tsp mastic

Redaction:

I gathered up almost everything, forgetting to picture the leeks and mint.

The yogurt went into the pot to boil.

Once the yogurt had started to boil and liquefy, I added the beef chunks.

I let this boil before adding the split, sliced and washed leek.

Bring the yogurt mixture to a boil three times before adding the onions, ginger (do NOT chop), cinnamon and mastic.

Put the flame, or stove top on low, and let simmer until the yogurt starts thickening up. If the yogurt doesn’t thicken add rice or arrow root.

Once the dish has thickened, add the mint then serve forth.

The dish doesn’t look like much, and I found it a little bland but exceptionally filling. I thought I was going to have to add starch; however as I let the liquefied yogurt reduce for about 20 minutes. The curds came together like small granules of rice. It takes a bit of time but it’s worth the wait. I also found the taste and excellent blend of onion, yogurt, beef and mastic, with a slight hint of ginger and cinnamon. I added a bit of salt and found this made a world of difference!

July 24, 2017 | No comments

Craving sweets lately, but I don’t want to eat lots of sugar. So I turned to my cookbooks in hopes to find something that will hit the sweet tooth without so much sugar my teeth hurt! I found this wonderful little gem.

Rutab Murabba

(Fresh Date Preserves)

Translation:

Leave ripe dates in the sun so that they dry a little. Remove their pits and replace them with peeled almonds, and arrange them in a glass (container), and throw skimmed honey on them and a little saffron. It comes out excellently. (Perry, pp. 433)

Ingredients:

Enough dried dates to fit into a glass jar

Enough almonds to fit into dates

Enough honey to cover dates once in the jar

A pinch of Saffron

Redaction:

I gathered up a box of dried dates, a handful of almonds (or two), an empty glass jar and a pinch of saffron.

I removed the seeds from the dates with a chop stick.

Then replaced the seeds with almonds.

I didn’t have peeled almonds, so I used regular. This may be a taste thing or a “We’re serving this to the king so it has to look fancy .” thing. I used what I had because I haven’t found peeled almonds available regularly yet!

Once the almonds were de-seeded and stuffed, they were thrown into a clean empty glass jar. Nope, our modern day jars are not what they had, obviously.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Container_Umar_II_Louvre_OA7448.jpg

Something like this might, might have been used. Decorative and useful.

Antique Bottles 392 – November – Kidlington Oxfordshire – https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b6/d1/ca/b6d1ca749c483afdcb2bed37c7d9d463.jpg

This is a simple utility jar. Nothing fancy other than it can easily fit dates at the top and pour honey in.

No, I don’t know 100% if either jar was used for this purpose. These are images I found for jars that meet my criteria. They will fit the item (dates) into said jar, and the item (dates) can be fished out with ease, i.e. stuffed dates.

The first of many more to come. Don’t fill the jar with honey first. Dates float and if you have to much honey and keep stuffing all your dates into the jar, the honey WILL over flow onto the counter, making a horrible mess. Do the dates first, then the honey…I promise this will keep you from having to clean or lick your counter tops off from all the spilled honey!

So once the dates are in the jar of your choice, place the pinch of saffron on top,

and pour in the honey.

I screwed on the lip, to keep small fingers and my own out of this until a later date. Set to the side until ready to use.

Right now the dates are soaking up honey and a little bit of the saffron flavor. I’m drooling already!

March 5, 2017 | No comments

I made yogurt the other day, which gave me 5 largish jars. That’s a LOT of yogurt…so like anything else you have extra of on hand, you find recipes to use the extra in. This is no different. Other than I also get to use mastic. Mastic is one of those rare(ish) type of ingredients that just smells divine!

Kabis

Crammed Meat

Translation:

Cut up fat meat medium and put it in the pot. When it boils, you remove its scum and throw in as many chickpeas as needed, and Chinese cinnamon sticks, mastic and bunches of dill. Season with salt and add water, and leave it in the tannur, and seal its top for a night until the next day. Then you put a little dry coriander, cumin and finely milled caraway on it, and you put a thurda (crumbled bread) under it. If you want to make it sour, sprinkle finely pounded sumac on it. If you want, put a little yoghurt and garlic (on it) before ladling it out. Chinese cinnamon and cumin are sprinkled on its surface and us it. (Rodinson, pp. 368)

Ingredients:

Fat meat – Beef, Lamb, Camel, Chicken etc

1 C Garbanzo beans

1 cinnamon stick

.5 tsp ground Mastic

1 tsp dill

Salt to taste

1 tsp each ground cumin, coriander and caraway

2 C yoghurt (Plain thick i.e. Greek yogurt or homemade)

2-5 cloves ground garlic

1 C dough (water flour salt…this will be used. Make it tasty!)

Redaction:

All the spices and extras, looking good!

So for the fat meat, I decided to go with chicken thighs. It’s fast easy and readily available. You can use beef, mutton or all of a chicken not just the thighs.

Cover your Dutch oven with water, letting this boil till scum floats to the surface.

Why a Dutch oven? Because I have several with matching lids for sealing. When we seal the lid to the pot, we are creating a double boiler low tech style. So you have to have a pot/dish with a lid. If you have something other than a Dutch oven with a matching lid, use that. The pot just needs a lid that can be sealed.

Personally, I never worried about the scum however we’re following this recipe and it takes 5 seconds to scrap it off into the trash.

Add your garbanzo beans (dried or canned). Here I used dried.

What I had on hand. Add your cinnamon stick, ground mastic and dill. You can use scraped/ground cinnamon if you don’t have a stick on hand. Once the stick is used, it’s done for.

Seal with the dough around the edge of the Dutch oven. (remember low tech double boiler)

The dough does double duty. It seals up the dutch oven and it becomes the thurda. The dough sealing the dutch oven, tastes pretty damn good dipped into just the juice before the rest of the spices are added. That’s why you want to make it tasty. This dough, is about to become your dumpling. Trust me, this step is well worth the effort!

Place in the oven on low for 5 hours at 150 -200. You want low slow and steady. Yes, the recipe says overnight but that’s assuming your leaving your dish over coals. We’re not, and most people don’t have a fire place or pit that can support this low tech level. Just keep this in mind on why the recipe says overnight not just what you don’t have and adjust as you can.

After a few hours, pull the Dutch oven out.

Pull off the cooked dough, which will be both hard (on the outside) and slightly springy (on the inner portion that held the seal together). Break this into bite sized pieces and add to your shredded chicken.

After taking off the lid, just push a wooden spoon through the chicken. If you used whole thighs with skin and bone (highly recommended for better flavor) the meat will separate off the bone. The meat is so tender, it will start shredding into bits and pieces as you stir.

At this point you want to sprinkle with the last of the spices.

Yogurt and garlic next. I added 2 cups of yogurt and 3 large cloves of garlic. Salt to taste.

Now just sprinkle with a little ground cinnamon.

And serve! This is excellent by itself, over rice or steamed veggies. Oh my tasty!

February 21, 2017 | No comments

So I made this dish a month or so back and really did it all wrong! How you may ask? Well for one, I used pomegranate molasses, because I had it on hand, instead of the juice. Do NOT do this. For the love of your taste buds…really do not do this. Pomegranate molasses is great in some dishes but very tart. Suck your face in through your cheeks tart. So spend the time crushing and straining pomegranate seeds OR buy the juice (just juice nothing else in the juice!)

Tabikh Habb Rumman:

A cooked dish of pomegranate seeds

Translation:

Finely pound pomegranate seeds and strain. Thicken with shelled almonds. Add sugar, mint, cinnamon, and mastic, allowing it to congeal over the fire. Mix with chicken which has been boiled and baked. Boil it. If you want to put pumpkin with it, do so. (Ibn al-‘Adim Kitab al-Wuslah/Salloum, pp. 98)

Ingredients:

Whole chicken or 6 chicken thighs

1.5 C pomegranate juice

1 C shelled almonds (I used slivered…had ‘em on hand)

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and ground mastic

1 tsp. sugar

2 tsp mint

Redaction:

Gather your items up. Takes just a moment.

I placed the chicken thighs in water to boil.

Ok, so this is the after boil picture. The thighs had cooked about 10 minutes with me skimming the foam. Hush…a novelty for sure!

The thighs were then placed in a baking dish to cook for 35 minutes at 350.

Fresh from the oven and roasting. Personally, I can’t tell the difference of boiling then roasting instead of just roasting. Perhaps it keeps the meat moist; however if you pay attention you can do this with roasting as well. I’m sure somewhere, someone did this as a roast or just a boil and not both steps at once; however this time, we do both steps!

A quick note: Mastic smells a bit like pine resin yet has a slight almost lemon taste. Don’t use a lot of this. A little goes a loooong way. This is more to perfume the dish then to add actual flavor.

The pomegranate juice was mixed with the almonds and spices. The mixture is stirred till thickened. The sauce smells amazing. I can not emphasis how wonderful the aroma is. Just beautiful. I don’t normally wax enthusiastically about a smell over the taste, but the first thing you notice when cooking is just how gorgeous this sauce smells. Take the time and take a few deep breaths; enjoying each inhale!

Yep, I went the easy buy the juice way. It felt awesome!! I highly recommend this.

I decided against pumpkin. It is a period item but not one I had on hand easily today. If you’re going to use pumpkin don’t use the orange ones!! Those are modern and for show, being bred for size not taste. Get a heritage pumpkin and roast that with just a touch of oil on the inside (after scooping out the seeds).

Pull the chicken out of the oven and place in the pot with the pomegranate mix.

You can leave the pieces whole or shred. Mix with the pomegranate sauce and serve over rice. I do suggest leaving the chicken in the sauce till the meat is almost falling off the bone. A long slow simmer of 30 minutes.

January 31, 2017 | No comments

So when I started this project, I thought the worst thing was going to be to grind the fat. I was sooo wrong. That was actually one of the easiest. The second worst thing about making sausages is cleaning the equipment. Everything is stuck with ground meat that wants to cling…like an ex you just want to get rid of 2 weeks ago. The absolutely worst part? Getting the meat to get into the casing. It’s like stuffing an extra-large man into an extra small condom. It’s a real bitch and no one’s happy. The meat is yummy the sausages look horrible but are tasty. Not a complete loss but I’ll be taking my time doing this again.

Masir al-Dawwara (A Stuffed Sausage)

Translation:
Finely chop red meat (lean) and chop as much alya (sheep’s tail fat). Finely chop fresh herbs, onion, and rue. (add to the meat) then pound the meat mixture with a knife until it has the consistency of ointment. Add cassia, black pepper, caraway, ma kamakh (liquid fermented sauce), a little vinegar, and olive oil. Kneed the mixture very well and stuff it into a large intestine with the fat adhering to it. Also stuff with some small intestines. Cook them with whatever dish you prefer, God willing. (al-Warraq, pp. 187)

Ingredients:
2 lbs. ground meat
1 lb. beef fat
1 tsp. ea. Ground cassia, black pepper, caraway
2 tbs. vinegar
1 tbs. fish sauce
1/4 C olive oil.
1 onion (chopped)
Redaction:
Warning now…this gets messy. Really messy! Grind up the fat and combine with the meat.

Chop your onion and add this to the meat. Do NOT add rue. Some people have a reaction to rue that most have to poison ivy. Baaaad juju! No rue!

Next add your spices and liquid ingredients.

Combine well. Set up your intestine and stuff.

Here I use lamb intestine (not pork for obvious reasons).

Start your stuffing and telling dirty jokes! This part really doesn’t have any good pictures just less dirty innuendo pictures.

This recipe seems to think the sausage can be served in a dish or as a side dish. Cook whichever way is good and serve.

These were eaten as is. I am going to suggest (as usual) playing with the recipe. I found these a little dry so would probably add more fat and/or liquid but not more fish sauce. Perhaps a good red wine but definitly more fat!

March 8, 2016 | No comments

So this one…is just a bit outside of my taste range. I’m sure it was an excellent and enjoyable treat. This dish is NOT your typical omelet. More like a savory sweet for the cook to show off their skill. Posting this as a “Hmmm…how creative/showing off do I really want to do here.”

Ujaj Mudawwarat

(Another Omelet)

Translation:

Take some eggs and spate the whites from the yolks. Add a little honey to the whites, beat them together, and add to them chopped rue, tarragon, mint and basil. Beat this mixture well, put it in a pot and light a fire underneath it until it sets and thickens. Sprinkle it with ta little cumin cassia, murrie and olive oil. Turn the egg white disc onto a platter and spread it on the egg yolk you have separated, sweetened with sugar and cooked until thickened and set. (al-Warraq’s, pp. 329)

Ingredients:

3 eggs (Separate the whites from the yolk)

1 tsp honey

1/8 tsp ground tarragon, mint and basil

1/2 tsp sugar

Topping:

Cumin, cinnamon, fish sauce, and olive oil

Redaction:

Separate your eggs, the whites from the yolks.

Mix the whites with the honey.

Pour the mixture into a lightly greased pan.

Once out of the pan sprinkle with cumin, cinnamon, fish sauce and olive oil (a few drops not too much). Put the finished whites on a plate.

Next take the yolk add the sugar and cook.

Add the yolks on top of the whites for a crowned omelet.

I know this is a bit of a messy picture. The omelet cooking in two parts was a bit of a messy project. Try this once just to say you have. This is a good learning experience with out taking to much time or to many costly ingredients.

October 23, 2015 | No comments

This dish did not turn out as expected. It was an experiment where a lot was learned and will be retried. So here is my mistake with my ideas on how to do it better next time!

Translation:

Take some fatty meat and cut it into thin slices, the thinner you can get them. Take some round onions and slice them thinly crosswise into discs like coins.

Now prepare a clean pot of soapstone. Spread its bottom with a layer of the meat; sprinkle it with black pepper, coriander, and caraway; and spread a layer of the onion slices. Put another layer of the meat and fat sprinkle it with spices and salt then another layer of onion.

Cover with round of bread. Cook the pot on a slow-burning fire until meat is cooked. Invert the pot onto a wide bowl and serve it, God willing. (Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, pp. 311)

Ingredients:1.5 lbs thin sliced meat i.e. tongue or brisket

1 tsp ground pepper

2 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp caraway seed

1 onion sliced in rounds; if too big to cut into coin sized rounds cut the onion in half and thinly sliced half pieces

1 round of raw dough.

Redaction:

This recipe was made with tongue, a tough piece of fairly lean meat. I personally believe that a fatty piece of meat such as a brisket would have been a good choice as well.

The skin of the tongue was peeled,

then sliced it as thinly as possible. Some slices were thinner than others.

The spices were gathered together then mixed together.

The clay pot was oiled on the bottom before the meat was added.

The meat was added then spiced. Rounds of onions were scattered over the meat. I used dabs of butter for the fat as the tongue is very lean.

A second layer was added and the final round of spiced meat.

At this point a layer of dough should have been added over the meat; however as this was a first time dish not all of the directions were read. I have to say it was a good misfortune to have missed the dough. The dish came out very tasty but very moist, almost soupy, with all of the butter and juice from the tongue. Had a crust been added, it would have been soggy and nasty.

The meat came out of the oven a little too early. The very thin slices were perfect at 350 for an hour. The thicker slices were good but chewier and could have stood for another hour of cooking.

Over all the dish was tasty, even with missing the crust. I would probably suggest using a tough and fatty meat for next time such as brisket. The brisket would negate the necessity of butter while allowing for a non-soggy crust.

October 8, 2015 | No comments

So whats for dinner? Beef! I had a yen for a new dish and a bit of time on hand. This gem showcases different flavors in the best of way.

Tabahija with Honey (Slice Meat with Honey)

Translation:

In a green glazed bowl, mix to blend 1/4 ratl murri with 2 Tbs. honey. Strain the mix through a sieve. Add 3 grams coriander, 1 1/2 grams black pepper, 1 gram cinnamon, and 1 gram asafetida.

Slice 2 lbs. lamb and marinate it in the sauce. Set up a pot on the fire and add 2/3 C. sweet olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the sliced meat with the marinade along with 1 gram crushed salt.

Cook the meat until the sauce is greatly reduced. Let the pot settle for a while then serve the Tabajija garnished with chopped cilantro and rue. (Iban Sayyar al-Warraq. Pp. 358, 359)

Ingredients:

2 lbs. slice meat (beef or lamb)

2 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp coriander

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp cinnamon

3 cloves minced garic

2/3 – 1 C. olive oil

Optional:

1 tsp sea salt

1 C. mead or sweet wine

Redaction:

I gathered the spices together and had to make a few changes (it’s cooking you’re allowed to change things a little). I know…cinnamon and garlic and cumin just sound weird but it works. Give it a try!

I used fish sauce mixed with soy sauce to mimic a good murri. Then I mixed this with honey but I did not strain before mixing.

There were neither vegetable matter nor bug parts from the murri or honey that needed to be strained out.

I sliced up the meat.

I had a hunk of beef brisket tip that needed a long slow cooking recipe, this was that recipe. The meat was sliced roughly 1/2 inch thick as this will cook down and I didn’t want paper thin strips without texture. You can if you want cut the meat paper thin; this is a texture/taste issue!

I mixed the meat with the marinade.

As you can tell the marinade just covers all the meat. Either I need more marinade or I can use a sweet liquid to help bolster the sauce. I decide the liquid route especially since I had a bottle of mead handy. Red or white sweet wine can be used instead if you desire to use the liquid route or you can make a lot more marinade if you have more meat than expected. It’s all good.

Once the meat was in the marinade, I poured the olive oil into a pot and let it get hot.

When the oil was hot, I slide the meat, piece by piece, into the oil.

The marinade liquid was poured on top after all the meat was in the oil. The heat was turned low to allow the meat to slow cook until tender.

I didn’t add any salt. I thought the fish sauce and soy sauce gave the dish a wonderful salty flavor complimented by the honey. Because I think the meat is well salted and flavored I would suggest serving over a savory or plain jasmine rice.

August 21, 2015 | No comments

So occasionally I find odd bits of meat pieces in the freezer. I know what they are and about when I put them there (no freezer burn please!) I just can’t remember what the ORIGINAL use was for, so I improvise. This improvisation came about during a “I want MEAT now!!!” phase and a few things from the cupboard. I’m rather please with how tasty it all turned out.

Murammala bi kam’a

(Beef Stew with Truffles and Garbanzos)

Translation:

Cut meat into small pieces, wash it, and put it in a pot. Add soaked chickpeas, zayt maghsul (washed olive oil), galangal and cassia, a piece of each, chopped onion, chopped fresh herbs, and a little salt.

Pour some water into the pot and let it boil, skimming the froth as it comes up. Add black truffles, chopped into small pieces like meat. If truffles are not available, substitute with carrots or gourd, also chopped like the meat. Add them to the pot along with black pepper, coriander seeds,…cumin, and a small amount of cheese and ground cassia.

Garnish the top with many poached eggs, and allow the stew to settle and rest for a while. Ladle and serve the dish, god willing. (Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, pp. 283)

Ingredients:

3 lbs. Stew meat

2 Tbsp. ea. Parsley and basil (dry if fresh is not available)

1 pinch saffron

1 Onion

1/2 C. Olive oil

1 16 oz. can garbanzo beans drained

1 Tsp ea. Ground cinnamon, black pepper, coriander, cumin, galingale

2 Tsp sea salt

3 Bruised bay leaves (fresh) or 3 whole dried to be pulled out at the end of cooking

2 C. Carrots

2 C. Water

3 or 4 eggs raw eggs or more

Cheese to taste (feta or manchago)

Redaction:

So the meat I used here is a bit of brisket with the fat trimmed. This is a tough chewy chunk of meat so needs a lot of slooooow cooking. A crock pot is really good for this or low and slow in the oven.

I cut up the beef (note the chunky quality?) This will cook down.

and onions (separately) then gathered all the herbs

carrots and garbanzo beans.

I was being a little lazy with the carrots (no truffles were on hand) and used baby carrots unchopped. If you have regular carrots and want to chop them by all means please do!

I poured roughly one half cup of olive oil into a crock pot then added the meat. Once the meat was in the crock pot, I added onions, spices, carrots and salt.

I also added about two cups of water and the garbanzo beans.

Give this a stir so that everything is well mixed and the water just a little under the ingredients.

Before serving crack 3 or 4 eggs over the stew to poach.

If you don’t feel comfortable with poaching the eggs in the broth, poach them prior then serve a poached egg per bowl over the stew.

This is what the poached egg in beef stew looks like. I was a little hesitant myself to do this as I was like “Really?! Poached eggs in a beef stew? Were they mad?!” Turns out this adds a really nice creamy flavor to the stew. I recommend this part highly!

When scooping out your stew make sure to get at least one poached egg to be broken in the bowl. Add cheese and server forth!

August 14, 2015 | No comments

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