Murri
If you feel adventurous try making Murri at home. I wanted to try this at home at least once. If you don’t want to put in the hours of work with honey and soy sauce mixture.
[nuqra]
“Recipe of Byzantine Murri right away. Take, upon the name of God, the Most High, three pounds of honey scorched in a kettle ; 10 loaves of bread scorched in the brick oven and pounded; half a pound of starch; two ounces each of roasted anise, fennel and nigella; an ounce of Byzantine saffron; celery seed, an ounce; half a pound of Syrian carob; 50 peeled walnuts; half a pound of syrup; five split quinces; half a makkûk of salt dissolved in honey; and 30 [viz. 100] pounds of water. Throw the rest of the ingredients on it [viz. on the water], and boil it on a slow flame until a third of the water goes away. Then strain it well in a clean, tightly woven nosebag of hair. Put it up in a greased glass or earthenware vessel with a narrow top. Throw a little lemon from Takranja on it. If it suits that a little water be thrown on the dough and that it be brought to the boil and strained, it would be a second [infusion]. The weights and measurements of the ingredients are given in pounds and weights Antiochian and zahiri [as] in Mayyafarqin.”
Ingredients:
This redaction is 1/10th of the original as closely as possible
5.25 C honey
1 loaf scorched bread grated or pounded small
1.5 Tbs starch
¼ oz of anise, fennel, nigella, celery seed
Pinch saffron
1 apple
1 tsp salt
5 walnuts
5.25 C water
1.5 TBS syrup
Salted Preserved lemon
Redaction:
Add honey to a large pot, boil until very dark.
Chop up the apple and grind the walnuts fine. Mix 2 TBS sugar with 1 Tbs water. If you only have seeds for anise, fennel and celery, grind those up as well.
Then add the ingredients to the honey. Boil until 1/3 of the liquid has evaporated.
Do NOT step away!! The honey, plus breadcrumbs and starch will thicken this right up. You’ll be down to half or ¼ of your original amount in 5 minutes.
Strain thoroughly through tightly woven cloth.
Here I had to do two things. The first was to let the sauce sit overnight, for about 15 hours, in a colander with a linen bag to strain the mixture through. This produced a very smooth sauce of about 1.5 cups.
The next step was to pour the remainder of the mix through the colander. This produced a nice almost smooth sauce of almost 2 cups.
Obviously not as smooth and clear as the first method but faster as in 30 seconds with minimal inclusions. Next time, I’d just use the colander method next time.
Once poured into a container add lemon. I’ve added salted preserved lemon.
I took a taste of this before the water was added. My first thought, before tasting, was that the honey was going to taste nasty with the addition of salt. The spices were already mixing with the honey to create this incredible flavor. It is amazing! I want to make a mead from this combination. I think instead of chopping a small apple, next time I will chop it finer or even grind it. I want all the flavors to be in the Murri.