Tag Archives: middle eastern meat

Meat Porridges (Hara'is) and Oven Dishes (Tannuriyyat), Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions, Shawi: Grilled Meat

Shawi: Grilled Meat

Aside Leave a comment

Even though this dish says “grilled”, it’s not.  Even though it looks a little bland, it’s an amazing dish with more flavor than can be described in the word “grilled”.  Fast and easy.  You spend as much time on prepping as you do cooking.  Give this one a try, if your short on time or just need something showstopping on the taste buds.

 

Shawi: Grilled Meat

Translation:

Take fatty good grilling meat and sheep’s tail.  Chop finely.  Put in a shallow earthenware pot.  Put it over the fire.  Take for it roasted walnut hearts and throw over roasted and pounded coriander and caraway, parsley, mint and lime.  Put in the middle a little atraf al-tib.  Put in a dish and eat hot.  It is tasty.  (Kanz al-Fawa’id fi Tanwi’ al-Mawa’id/Salloum, pg 50-51)

 

Ingredients:

1 – 1.5 lbs Meat

1/2 C. Olive Oil or sheep tail fat

2 C. Roasted Walnuts

1 tsp. caraway (roasted and ground)

1 tsp. ground coriander, parsley and mint

2 Tbs. lime juice

 

Redaction:

I gathered all the ingredients together.

I had beef for grilling on hand so went with that.  Any good quality meat will do.  I cut the meat into about 1/2 to 1/3 what I would normally for making kabobs.  I wanted to have easily chewed pieces not huge dripping chunks.  The meat was then put into a shallow tajine bottom.

 

I left the lid off as the recipe didn’t say to cover.  I think my idea of small is not the original cook’s idea of “finely”.  I’m ok with this.

 

Next I took roasted walnuts, spices and lime juice. Everything was mixed together then popped into the oven at 350 for 10-15 minutes.

 

If you’ll notice the meat is still a little pink at the center.  This is a fast cooking dish.

 

The reason you don’t see this on a plate over roasted vegetables or sauted spinach…it was eaten to fast.  I just got enough into this bowl before it was devoured.  This is a damn good recipe!

Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions, Plain Dishes (Sawadhij)

Sikh (Skewered Meat)

Aside Leave a comment

There have been a few hurdles over the past few months that I have had to address and recover from.  However I have a new recipe to add to my list of favorite dishes.  Meat plus fire, always an excellent combination!

Sikh

 (Skewered Meat)

???????????????????????????????

Translation:

…for the method for skewered meat: mix meat with salt onions and turmeric and boil it with whole potherbs.  Cut it into very small pieces and strain it.  Then fasten one segment of meat and one piece of onion on the skewer and rub ghee, caraway, lime juice, white ambergris, rosewater and salt on it.  Bake it well and when it is tender, wrap it in thin bread and serve it.  (Mandu, pp. 26)

Ingredients:

2 lb cubed meat

Salt (to taste)

1 onion (finely chopped)

1 tsp turmeric

½ tsp ea. thyme, cilantro and basil

Second stage

1 onion cut into quarters

Ghee

2 tsp Caraway

1 tsp lime juice

¼ tsp rosewater

Salt to taste

 

Redaction:

I am going to change this slightly.  Here instead of boiling the meat, I am placing the meat to marinade overnight in the first set of ingredients.

So first, take a good piece of meat with a bit of marbled fat for excellent flavor and cut it into cubes.

cutting up meat with onionThen mix the marinade together.

???????????????????????????????After the meat has marinated for 24 hours (or slightly longer),

???????????????????????????????I skewer all the meat.

???????????????????????????????I alternate one cube with one slice of onion, until the skewer is filled.  The onion chunks actually help with the cooking.  I did several skewers with onions and several without.  Those without onions cooked slower and the meat was still very red in between the chunks while the outside was done and slightly charred.

Once the skewers are ready to grill, I brush each one with the ghee, caraway, lime juice, rose water and salt mixture, every 5 minutes until the meat is done.

???????????????????????????????

This is the raw meat grilling on a small clay pot grill.

???????????????????????????????The meat is smelling heavenly at this point but still a bit raw.

???????????????????????????????The meat is done and ready to be devoured.

The meat actually never made it into the flat bread.  We ate the cubes hot off the skewers.  It was delicious.  I regret nothing!