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Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions, Plain Dishes (Sawadhij)

Mutawakkiliyya (Meat with Taro)

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I haven’t worked with Taro root before so this was new. I love the almost potato like squish of the taro when I bit down. The spices can be…overwhelming. So keep that in mind when you go to cook this.

Mutawakkiliyya (The Caliph al-Mukatwakkil d. AD 861)
Meat with Taro


Translation:
A pound and a half of meat and a pound and a half of washed taro, caraway pepper Ceylon cinnamon, five bunches of green coriander, five green onions, five heads of garlic. The meat is
put in the pot and water to cover or less is put on it and you kindle (the fire) under it until it dries up. And when the water has evaporated, you throw the pepper and caraway , and you cut up
two bunches of green coriander and four green onions and pound the four heads (of garlic) mixed with three bunches of green coriander. You feed it with all the pepper and caraway and
throw everything into the pot with the meat. You can cut up the garlic. When it smells good, you put water on the pot as needed to cove the taro you have. Then you kindle (the fire) until
the taro smells good, and you make it settle and ladle it out. (Rodinson, pp. 340)


Ingredients:
1.5 lbs stew meat
1.5 cleaned taro root
2 tsp. ea. Long pepper (groud) and caraway
1 Tbs Chinese cinnamon
1 head of garlic
1 bunch cilantro (RINSED)
1 bunch green onions
Salt to taste


Redaction:
So reading through the recipe is a little bit confusing. The quantities change from 5 to 4 to 3 the further you go in. So I made a few judgement calls (after experiment). I tried 3 heads
of garlic with two full store bunches of cilantro and 4 green onions. WHOA! All I tasted was garlic. So I made a decision to embrace the right as a cook to change how much went into my
dish.


I used one (well rinsed) bunch of cilantro, 8 green onions (one store bought bunch), and one head of garlic. There is still a bite; however I can now taste the green onion and cilantro
instead of swearing I’ve turned into a vampire the garlic bit back so much.


I gathered all my items up. Per usual, I have cut the meat into bite sized pieces. I think that’s courteous to my quests to not have to chew one piece for ever while having the cheeks of a
chipmunk.


First thing to notice is that taro root looks like hairy roaches. I found when picking out the Taro, the box contained a lot of moldy roots. I went for the dense and firm roots without the
mold. I don’t need to rediscover penicillin. Rinse them well and peel off the outer layer.


The spices are some of the usual suspects. However, I am trying more long pepper than just regular pepper. I LOVE the smell of fresh long pepper. In the picture, you will see the long
pepper is whole. I ground mine up, so the full flavor could be enjoyed by all, not just the one person who bit down on a whole long pepper. However, I am trying more long pepper than just regular pepper. I LOVE the smell of fresh long pepper. In the picture, you will see the long pepper is whole. I ground mine up, so the full flavor could be enjoyed by all, not just the one person who bit down on a whole long pepper.

Put the meat into a pot with just enough water to cover.


Once the first round of water has evaporated, everything but the taro root goes into the pot.

Stir this around until fragrant. 2-3 minutes. Next add the taro root and enough water to cover. Cook until the taro root is tender. This is about 35-45 minutes.


Serve!


The taro root is nice. A good starch in place of potato for a beef stew. STRONG garlic taste even with the cinnamon. Not even the lovely fragrant long pepper could overcome so much garlic. When I do this dish again, I’ll probably go for ½ a head of garlic and maybe a smidge more cilantro and green onion. Otherwise pretty tasty.

Banquet dels Quatre Barres (2nd edistion)

Alhams Walluhum; Chickpeas and Meat

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I had left over lamb that needed to be cooked and chickpeas that needed to be eaten.  I found a dish that incorporated both with tasty results!

Alhams Walluhum

Chickpeas and Meat

Translation:

…flavor meat with asafetida and cook it.  Add chickpea pulse.  Add cumin, fenugreek, asafetida, salt, turmeric, pepper, lime juice and garlic; cook it until it is very tender. (The Nimatnama Manuscript of the Sultans of Mandu, pp. 35)

 

Ingredients:

2 C. meat (lamb cooked with asafetida)

1 C. chickpeas (lightly ground)

1 tsp. ground cumin, fenugreek, turmeric

1/2 tsp. asafetida, salt, and ground pepper

2 tsp. lime juice

 

Redaction:

Here are the gathered ingredients.

 

I used lamb, sprinkled with asafetida, that had been previously cooked. Leftovers put to good use.

I ground the chickpeas only a little bit.  I didn’t want to make a mush of them but I did want to break them down a bit.

 

Next I added all the spices.  A note about asafetida, it’s called the devil’s stink weed for a reason.  It’s like garlic on steroids.  A little goes a long way, so use it sparingly!  If you don’t have asafetida, just use garlic.

Finally the chance to taste what was smelling so amazing!

 

The dish itself is rather unremarkable looking, slightly bland yellow.  However I wanted to add a touch of color while getting my healthy on.  Not to worry, the sauteed spinach IS optional.  If you don’t want to have spinach, don’t.  I added it because it breaks up the plating just a bit.  Mostly I did this for decoration and greens instead of a salad at dinner time.

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!

Ingredients and Spices, Musk

Musk

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Musk

 

Musk is noted in more medieval recipes for food and perfumes than you can shake a sword at, adding a depth and complexity to foods the same way sandalwood does.  A little goes a very long way!

Now modernly, we can get musk from whales (ambergris) also known a whale snot.

Beaver musk (castor sacks of Castor Canadensis or Castor fiber).

Civet (viverridae).

Finally ambrette musk (hibiscus ablemoschus).

Period musk is almost impossible to get.  Why you may ask?  While I was doing a bit of studying for another project (surprise, surprise), I’ve found that the original(ish) musk mentioned in period cooking came from three sources.  The Siberian musk deer (M. moschiferus), black musk deer (M. fuscus) Alpine/Himalayan musk deer (M. chrysogaster).  The glands of the musk deer were harvested (and small quantities from very small musk deer farms) by removing the scent glands of the deer.

The gland secretions would dry into small black grains that were, and are, prized for the pheromones they exude.  The description is that of a rich and earthy smell, almost heavenly.  Mostly.  Some people found it repulsive, but not so many that the deer aren’t on the verge of extinction now.

The original method for removal was to kill the deer and take the musk glands, without worry about sustainability.  This has come back to haunt those who relied on the deer’s scent gland.   Few of these animals survive, except in the most remote regions.  The price, in period is listed as being twice the weight in gold and modernly 3 to 4 times that price now.  (Nabhan, pp. 150-151).

So where does that leave the modern cook?  Up a creek for the period musk.  There is no way that musk, from the listed deer, is harvested cruelty free or without costing an arm and a leg (throw a kidney in for good measure).  There are substitutions.   There is a variety of plant based musks with beautiful earthy notes and of course synthetics.  If possible go with the plant based.  Experiment.  Try new things!  Always err on the side that more can be added but it’s going to be hard to remove what you’ve already put in!

Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions, Rutab Murabba (Fresh Date Preserves), Sweetmeats (Halawat)

Rutab Murabba (Fresh Date Preserves)

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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!

 

Medieval Middle Eastern Redactions, Plain Dishes (Sawadhij)

Sikh (Skewered Meat)

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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)

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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.

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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!