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Banquet dels Quatre Barres (2nd edistion)

Mishmishiya: Fat Meat with Apricots

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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.

Madira - Meat in Yogurt with Leeks, Meat Porridges (Hara'is) and Oven Dishes (Tannuriyyat), Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions

Madira (Meat in Yogurt with Leeks)

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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!