E-Arab-recip-art - 3/23/03 Selected early Arab recipes prior to the 13th Century by Anahita. These are from "In a Caliph's Kitchen" by David Waines, a rather difficult to find book. NOTE: See also the files: fd-Mid-East-msg, fd-Persia-msg, murri-msg, Arabs-msg, Middle-East-msg, cl-Mid-East-msg, turbans-msg, cookbooks-bib, online-ckbks-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 15:21:56 -0800 To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org From: lilinah at earthlink.net Subject: [Sca-cooks] pre-Baghdadi Recipes in Waines - PT. 1 --- PART ONE --- From Anahita Spurred by a message long ago requesting recipes from before the 12th century, I've gone through "In a Caliph's Kitchen" and tried to pull out those that are non-Baghdadi/pre-Baghdadi, i.e. before the 13th century. Most of these are from other Arabic books, or at least attributed to early chefs. Since I already have al-Baghdadi's recipes elsewhere, these are what interest me the most anyway, besides Waines' essays at the beginning of the book and some of his comments on the recipes. I'm sending this message to the list in three parts, because it is rather long for e-mail (39K total according to my e-mail client - so each part is about 12 to 14 k). In a Caliph's Kitchen David Waines Riad El Rayyes Books Ltd. 56 Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7NJ 1989 ISBN 1-869844-60-2 I realize that this could be considered a copyright violation, so I am presenting it to the cooks list, because this book is out of print and very very hard to find - even to ILL, which is what I did, then photocopied. I would much rather have purchased the book but despaired after searching for it from used booksellers on-line for several years. I don't know the date of the anonymous Egyptian book, but I suspect it is one included in "Medieval Arab Cookery" and is a bit later than al-Baghdadi. al-Warraq, Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi, and Abu Samim are pre-al-Baghdadi. They are presented in the order in which they appear in Waine's book - they don't appear to me to be organized in any clear way. I include Waines' intro to each recipe and the translation of the original, but NOT Waines' "modern" version, which is often not much like the original. Words in the recipes in (parentheses) are from Waines. Remarks [in square brackets] are from me. The Arabic "gh" is pronounced rather like a German or French "r", that is, it is rather gutteralized or uvular. The Arabic "r" is flapped or rolled, like a Spanish or Italian "r". Note that "fresh coriander" is coriander greens, variously called cilantro or Chinese parsley; and that "dried coriander" is coriander seeds. Aubergine is eggplant. Where only "meat" is specified you can't go wrong with lamb (or mutton), although goat is also a possibility. Beef (or ox) is ok to substitute, but less likely to have been used in the original. Naturally pork or boar is out of the question. A number of recipes call for "washing the sides of the pot". Since this is generally done before leaving the pot to cook on the fire without stirring, I assume it is so none of the food burns on the sides which would look unattractive upon serving, and could ruin the flavor of the completed dish. --------------------- Shaljamiya - pp. 34-35 WAINES: This recipe is taken from the earliest extant Arabic culinary work of al-Warraq. Attributed to Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi, it is on of two in which he used shaljam or turnip, an Arabized word from the Persian shalgham. Radish is recommended by al-Warraq as a substitute for turnip in this preparation; or, if turnips were not in season, gourd and onion could also have been used. In the modernized version here [which i, Anahita, am omitting], the vegetable known in English as swede [that's rutabaga in the US, yes?, and OOP?] makes an excellent substitute for turnip, giving a richer and more distinctive flavour. Ibrahim composed a poem on this dish in which he compare the turnip to the moon and stars, or again, as silver coins. ORIGINAL: Take the breasts of chicken or other fowl, cut into thin slices and place in a pot with a lot of oil adding water to cover. Remove the scum. Throw in chick peas and olive oil and the white of onion and when cooked, sprinkle ion top with pepper and cumin. Next take the turnip and boil it until cooked and then mash it so that no hard bits remain in it. Strain in a sieve and place in the pot. Then take shelled almonds and put in a stone mortar adding to it a piece of cheese and bray very fine. Break over this the whites of five eggs and pound until it becomes very soft. Put this mixture over the turnip and if there is milk in it, put in a bit of nard and leave on the fire to settle. Serve it with mustard. --------------------- Badhinjan mahshi - pp. 36-37 WAINES: This is one of a wide range of dishes known collectively as bawarid, that is, cold dishes. They were made from various vegetable feature, for example, carrots, gourd, and beet. Examples of such cold dishes can also be found made from meat, poultry or fish. This particular preparation is attributed also to Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi who was very fond of the vegetable. Medieval physicians regarded aubergine as an excellent food specifically because of its property of causing any obstruction in the kidney or spleen to be removed. ORIGINAL: Take the aubergine and stew it. Cut it up into small pieces after stewing. Next take a serving dish and put into it vinegar, white sugar and crushed almonds, saffron, caraway and cinnamon. Then take the aubergine and the fried onion and put them in the dish. Pour oil over it and server, God willing. --------------------- Rutab mu'assal - pp. 38-39 WAINES: In English this literally means 'honeyed dates'. Dates were the common staple food of the rural and nomadic populations throughout the Middle East where the hardy date palms of the arid and semi-arid zones produced vast quantities and varieties of this nourishing fruit. The Prophet Muhammad was reported to have said that dates possessed the special quality of dispelling poison and magic. He also is said to have commented that a household without dates was a hungry one. This preparation, from the thirteenth century, has all the features of the more sophisticated urban cooking tradition in its use of rosewater, almonds, musk, camphor and hyacinth. Only the first two need to be used, however, to enjoy this dish. ORIGINAL: Take freshly gathered dates and lay in the shade and air for a day. Then remove the stones and stuff with peeled almonds. For every ten ratls of dates take two ratls of honey. Boil over the fire with two uqiya of rose water and half a dirham of saffron, then throw in the dates, stirring for an hour. Remove and allow to cool. When cold, sprinkle with find-ground sugar scented with musk, camphor an hyacinth. Put into glass preserving jars, sprinkling on top some of the scented ground sugar. Cover until the weather is cold and [braziers] are brought in. [My Comments: Waines' wrote "chafing dishes", but the original word is qanun, which is a brazier, a metal one is used to heat a room in cold weather] --------------------- Zirbaj - pp. 40-41 WAINES: There are many varieties of this dish which is Persian in origin. The tenth century compiler of recipes, al-Warraq, includes this in a chapter of his work entitled zirbaj preparations and those, such as the one given here, made a la Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi. The sweet and sour flavours (in this case provided by the sugar and vinegar) were a common feature of dishes of Persian origin and may be found today in certain North African preparations. ORIGINAL: Take a fine quality chicken, joint it and clean it and place it in a clean pot. Then pour over one half ratl of fresh water and one half uqiya of a good quality oil, some white of onion, and boil together. When boiled, pour in white vinegar, a half ratl and two uqiya of white sugar, and one uqiya peeled almonds, and one uqiya rose water. Add spices, pepper, cinnamon and ginger tied up in a fine cloth so that they do not alter the dish's colour. Place on the fire a little allowing it to thicken. --------------------- Sibagh - pp. 41-43 WAINES: This is a general term for many kinds of seasoning or condiment and applies here specifically to the sauce to accompany fish. The preparation is attributed to Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi. Recipes have also come down to us for poultry dishes. One type of sibagh was used by travellers and came for convenience in the shape of small dried cakes made of currants with pomegranate seeds which, when read for use, could be reconstituted with vinegar. The purpose of such condiments at meals was to cleanse the palate of the oiliness of certain dishes, to stimulate the appetite and assist digestion. ORIGINAL: Take a handful of choice raisins and soak them in vinegar. Then mash. Add a little garlic and beat in with the vinegar. Prepare a saucer of this. --------------------- Masliya - pp. 44-45 WAINES: This preparation, also one by Ibriham ibn al-Mahdi, has a distinct Arab character about it. Masl, a by-product of milk, is variously described as dried curds, cooked and dried whey, or dried milk. In any event, milk was part of the staple diet of the Beduin and was considered by them to be 'one of the two meats' (the other, of course, being meat flesh). In its dried form it could be kept for a long while until needed when it required being chopped into small pieces for the cooking pot. Galingal (khulinjan in Persian) of the greater variety belongs to the ginger family and the two are often found together in medieval dishes. Like ginger, is is the spicy root of the plant which is used., and as galingal is difficult to obtain ginger alone makes a good substitute. [yeah, right, sure] For convenience, spinach has been substituted for beet leaves in modernized version of the recipe. [see if you can get beet greens. They're really really tasty, and they taste very different from spinach] ORIGINAL: Take the meat of a small young animal and cut it into finger like strips and place it in the pot after cleaning it thoroughly. Pour over it fine oil, a stick each of galingal and cinnamon and add fresh coriander and chopped onion. Cook and when nearly done, sprinkle over it pepper, dried coriander and ground cumin. Next boil beet (leaves) and add to the pot. Then cut up masl very fine and place over the contents and present it, God willing. [My Comments: I think I can get masl at my local Persian market or my local hallal Pakistani meat and grocery market. Waines used Gruyere cheese in his version, which I think would be way off] --------------------- Madira - pp. 54-55 WAINES: One of the classic Arab dishes, so-called because it is cooked with sour milk, which 'bites the tongue'. In order to get the proper degree of bite, fresh milk would be mixed with milk gathered in a goat's skin bag which would quickly sour it. Its original, rustic preparation was simplicity itself. Here, in the hands of Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi, a transformation has occurred to suit the urban palate. Ibrahim using his favourite vegetable the aubergine. The dish was judged to be so tempting that people could be driven to renounce their fast in order to indulge in it. Also deemed comforting for whatever ailment afflicted you, the dish was called "the miracle food'. ORIGINAL: Take milk in sufficient amount for the meat and let it be of moderate sourness; if it is too sour, then let (the proportion) be two thirds sour milk and one third fresh milk. Light a gentle fire under it and set (the pot) on it covered, and be patient for an hour so that the sour milk settles to the bottom and the water rises to the top. Strain the water from it and set it aside. Next take the meat from the shoulder (of the animal) and the ribs next to it, cut up into thin slices and wash. Stew lightly if you are in a hurry. Then remove from the pot and cover with cold water, allowing it to be absorbed. When the water had been drawn off from it, the pot with the sour milk is placed on the fire after the meat has been added to it. Kindle a gentle fire under it so that when the (contents) have boiled twice, you then peel and chop aubergine and gourd and onion round and place in water and salt for an hour. Add to the pot so that when it boils again, a bunch of mint is then added. When the contents have thickened, the water previously strained (from the sour milk) is sprinkled over it little by little. Wipe around the pot and leave it on the embers. Do not add any spices except cumin alone. Then remove the bunch of mint and add fresh mint so that it does not become blackened; if this, however, is not a matter of concern, then add dried coriander to the cumin. And, if asparagus is plentiful, use some. Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 15:22:28 -0800 To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org From: lilinah at earthlink.net Subject: [Sca-cooks] pre-Baghdadi Recipes in Waines - PT. 2 --- PART TWO --- From Anahita --------------------- In a Caliph's Kitchen David Waines Riad El Rayyes Books Ltd. 56 Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7NJ 1989 ISBN 1-869844-60-2 See first message for explanation of format and info included here. --------------------- Mutajjan bi sadr al-dajjaj - pp. 56-57 WAINES: A simple dish of Ibrahim's which simply means pieces of chicken bread (sadr al-dajjaj) fried in a tajin. The ingredient murri is a prepared condiment or seasoning which is impossible to replicate in the modern home, as it requires many weeks of labour intensive preparation commencing in the spring and lasting throughout the height of the summer heat. To say that it is made from barley flour seasoned with a variety of spices conveys no impression of its complexity. One recipe suggests as a substitute the spice sumac; as its rather astringent citrus-like flavour works well in dishes where it is ordinarily used, this substitution has been made throughout these recipes [in Waines' work ups]. Murri is said to have warming properties causing thirst and dryness in the body, in which respect it is even stronger than salt. This effect of murri can be countered by either drinking water or eating something sweet. ORIGINAL: Take chicken breasts sliced, cut up into small pieces and fry in oil until they appear to be cooked. Add to them pepper, fresh coriander and sprinkle over them vinegar and murri and then spread ground almonds on top, God willing. --------------------- Zirbajat al-Safarjal - pp. 58-59 WAINES: This is another variety of zirbaj as found in the recipe of that name (page 40). It is also one of Ibrahim's. The ingredient featured in it is quince (safarjal) juice, which together with the vinegar, gives the dish a pleasantly tart flavour. According to medieval medical lore, zirbaj dishes in general were unsuited for personas with 'weak stomachs'. Quince, however, is recommended as a counterbalancing ingredient for zirbaj, so this dish ought to suit everyone's stomach. ORIGINAL: Take one young plump chicken, joint it and place it in a clean pot. Put with it a stick of galingal, a handful of soaked and peeled chickpeas and a ratl of whole onions and a little salt. Pour over this sufficient water and salt to cover (the contents of the pot) and one third uqiya of oil. Then place the pot on the fire until. the onion is cooked; then remove all the onion so that none is left and then discard. Next, pour into the pot a quarter ratl of vinegar and wait until it has cooked. Then pour into (the pot) a ratl of fresh quince juice which has been pressed that day and add half an uqiya dried coriander and half a dirhem pepper and likewise half of nard, three dirhems of cumin and twenty dirhems of the choice pith of bread. Remove from the fire, wash around the pot and leave to settle. Then present, God willing. --------------------- Isfidhbaja Khadra - pp. 60-61 WAINES: The famous tenth century physician, al-Razi, says of this variety of dish that it is very healthy, being suitable for most conditions and occasions, for all ages and for all persons of voracious temperament, except the truly gluttonous. Those, however, inclined towards a temperament governed by yellow bile would find this dish unsuitable on its own: they would be advised to eat it with some kind of sour tasting fruit followed by a helping of sikbaj (see recipe on page 76). The kanun is a clay or mud brick hearth used for cooking. In this recipe, Ibrahim has employed a common practice of making a kind of quick vegetable stock in which to flavour the dish at a secondary stage of the preparation; here it is made of celery and fresh coriander water. [My Comments: portable metal kanuns are used as room heaters. The clay cooking kanun is also portable - it is a footed bowl - the charcoal going in the top and the dish to be cooked sitting over the charcoal] ORIGINAL: Take some four ratls of meat, cut it up bit by bit and place in a pot with a piece of cinnamon, a ratl of onion chopped up and a third of a ratl of oil with some salt as required. Cover with water and then place the pot quickly on a portable stove or a kanun. When the contents are half cooked, throw in with it pieces of cheese to the amount of five dirhems. When almost completely cooked, add a total of half a ratl of the water of coriander and celery, then pound dried coriander and a dirhem of pepper and half a dirhem of cinnamon. Leave until the contents have settled. Remove and serve, God willing. [My Comments: The coriander in the water is green. Celery was not the long firm crunch stalks we use, but the small sprigs with the leaves on, so get untrimmed celery to make this. Recipes i've seen for making a green flavor water involved pulverizing the greens, straining and squeezing through cloth, and using the liquid] --------------------- Samak mishwa - pp. 66-67 WAINES: Al-Razi, taking his cue from the Greek physician Galen described fish in general to be bad and difficult to digest. Although al-Razi was himself knowledgeable in matters of the kitchen, his professional medical opinion did not accord with that of contemporary gourmands who delighted in dishes such as this one. ORIGINAL: Take fresh fish, and scrape off the skin very well with a knife. Split open, wash thoroughly and dry. Take sumac, grind fine and discard the seeds. Take half of this quantity of dry thyme and also grind, together with a quarter as much garlic, skinned and chopped fine. Now take half the total quantity of walnuts and chop and mix all together, adding a little fine ground coriander, cumin, cinnamon, and mastic. Make this into a paste with fresh sesame oil, adding salt to taste. Smear the fish with sesame oil and saffron mixed with rose water inside and out. Then stuff with the stuffing described. Tie up with strong cotton threads and place on an iron skewer. Place in the oven over a gentle fire, not blazing. Cover and leave to cook well, then remove. This can be eaten hot or cold. [My Comments: While I don't have access to the Arabic, I suspect that the word translated here as "thyme" is actually zataar - about which we've had many conversations on this list, and while often in the same family as thyme is not always what we call thyme...] --------------------- Barida - 82-83 WAINES: This cold dish made from chicken was devised by Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi. The recipe is expressed in poetic form, not surprising from a man who was not only a gourmand, but well known as a poet too. He describes the dish as perfect summertime fare. The physician al-Razi observes that such dishes of the bawarid type, when made with vinegar or with the juice of sour fruits, serve to cool the temperament and moderate it. Qutha and faqqus, mentioned in the original recipe, are species of cucumber. ORIGINAL: Two parts almonds and sugar and two parts vinegar and mustard mixed together in a vessel with partially dried safflower adding colour around the [one short word not legible in my photocopy, may be "edges"]. Cucumber peeled, qutha and faqqas and pomegranate, chopped up small and sprinkled around the vessel. Add a little oil. Take a fine young chicken, cooked in vinegar, jointed and cut up in pieces and placed over the other ingredients in one vessel. Decorate the dish with pomegranate (seeds) and with almonds and olives chopped up fine. --------------------- Narjisiya - pp. 84-85 WAINES: This is Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi in poetic flight again, where he is replying to a friend's request for the recipe for a fine dish. A surprising ingredient is asparagus which but rarely appears in these recipe, although Ibrahim seemed to have a particular liking for it... In a later recipe from al-Baghdadi's work, the narcissus flower is imitated by garnishing the dish with poached eggs, evidence that attention was paid as well to the presentation of the dishes on the table. ORIGINAL: Remove the chops from the carcass and then the meat and fat of the flank. Cut up the fresh fat meat and wash it. Place it in a vessel over the fire and fry it in oil and spices until browned. Then cup up over it onion round and fresh green onion and add rue and coriander. Then add murri, ginger and a little pepper. Next add asparagus. Break over this egg yolks which resemble the radiant stars of the firmament and the rounded shaped flower of narcissus. Sprinkle bits of rue over the top. Then, remember God and eat this delicious wholesome food. --------------------- Tabahija - 86-87 WAINES: Another dish whose name is Arabicized from the Persian. There are also many varieties of this dish which appear in most of the culinary manuals. This one, attributed to Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi, is the earliest one we have. Like murri, kamakh is a savoury seasoning which is time-consuming to prepare, the operation commencing in June and ending in October. In this preparation for Tabahija, kamakh juice is used which means extracting the soluble elements from it by steeping or soaking in water. A later, thirteenth century, version of this dish suggests sumac juice, prepared in the same way as kamakh juice as a substitute for murri. ORIGINAL: Take the meat and slice and wash it thoroughly. Put half a ratl of water in a pot and boil it. Place the meat in the pot and pour over it fine oil, a little salt and cut up into it peeled aubergine and onion rings. When the contents have cooked and the liquid evaporated, sprinkle over it the amount of half a spoonful of kamakh juice and murri, and if desired, an equal amount of vinegar. Next proceed to chop up some herbs and spices, a little each of coriander or caraway, cinnamon and cumin, sprinkle over the contents and stir a while. Wash the sides of the pot with a ladle of water and leave awhile until settled. Then serve, God willing. --------------------- Zaitun - pp. 88-89 WAINES: This way of preparing and storing olives, suggested by Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi, provides a pleasant side dish placed alongside others on the meal table to be dipped into when desired. They can also be used wherever olives are called for in recipes [i don't agree]. The Mediterranean region provides 98 % of the world's acreage of olive production used to make oil. The vegetable [nope, sorry David, it's a *fruit*], which is native to that area, has been cultivated for three millenia [sic] for cooking, lamp and cosmetic oils and for food. ORIGINAL: Take black or green olives, black being the best, and put them in a jar adding to the contents salt and thyme. Then cover with fine oil. Use when the occasion arises, God willing. [My Comments: While I don't have access to the Arabic, I suspect that the word translated here as "thyme" is actually zataar - about which we've had many conversations on this list] --------------------- 'Ijja min Badhinjan - pp. 90-91 WAINES: The customary form of 'ijja is a food made with eggs, like an omelette. Here the word is used in another known sense to apply to a dish compounded of different ingredients mixed into a kind of dough and fried. The binding agent in this preparation is provided by the breadcrumbs rather than the egg. This recipe is from an anonymous work of probably Egyptian origin. ORIGINAL: Take a pleasant aubergine and peel it. Boil it in salted water until it is cooked through. Extract from it all the moisture. Then knead it in a bowl with crumbled pieces of bread with an infusion of murri, pepper, dried coriander and cinnamon, and beat them all together until the mixture is smooth. Then fry in a pan with oil, small loaf-sized portions of the mixture until cooked and browned. Make a sauce of vinegar and oil and murri and crushed garlic. Boil these together and pour over the loaves when ready for eating. [My Comments: The omelette type dish described by Waines is probably related to the modern Persian dish usually Romanized as eggah - there is no hard g sound in Arabic, so the soft j sound is used instead.] --------------------- Jazr - pp. 92-93 WAINES: There are a few dishes in the medieval Arabic repertoire where a vegetable is highlighted by itself. In this case it is used to decorate the plate on which something else is served; it is, in fact, a perfect accompaniment with a dish of plain rice. Carrots, at least, can be treated on their own as the carrot family of plants (which includes caraway, cumin, coriander, and dill, all common to medieval Arab cooking) is characterized by strongly scented essential oils. This recipe is thirteenth century Moroccan ORIGINAL: Cut the carrots into pieces without peeling them. Select the middle bits and cut each piece in half and cook in salted water. Dry the pieces off and fry in a pan with fresh oil. Then pour over it boiling vinegar with crushed garlic and caraway. One can then either leave the carrot pieces without frying (or else place them after frying) as decoration on a platter. [My Comments: First, I should check and see if this is in the Anonymous Andalusian cookbook. Second, this is *VERY* like a modern Moroccan recipe - the biggest differences are that the modern recipe uses cumin, not caraway, generally substitutes lemon juice for the vinegar, and often includes a bit of powdered red chili] Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 15:22:53 -0800 To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org From: lilinah at earthlink.net Subject: [Sca-cooks] pre-Baghdadi Recipes in Waines - PT. 3 --- PART THREE --- From Anahita --------------------- In a Caliph's Kitchen David Waines Riad El Rayyes Books Ltd. 56 Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7NJ 1989 ISBN 1-869844-60-2 See first message for explanation of format and info included here. --------------------- Maghmuma - pp. 94-95 WAINES: The word means simply 'covered', in reference to the bread covering of the pot at the end of the preparation. Another version of this dish is made in several layers, each on 'covering' the other. This particular recipe was devised by Ibrahim ibn al-Madhi ORIGINAL: Take fresh and tender asparagus and boil lightly, then cut up into small pieces and remove. Take meat and cut up into small pieces. Next from a chicken, remove the fat, the gizzard and liver and after cleaning, add them to the pot, except the liver which may be put in last. Pour over this washed oil and crushed chick peas, ground salt, white of onion[,] fresh coriander and leeks all chopped up. Pour in water just less than enough to cover the contents and boil until cooked. When cooked, add the asparagus with chopped walnuts, chopped cheese and pitted olives[,] adding as well dried coriander and pepper. Take an egg and break it into a dish adding to it also pepper and coriander. Beat vigorously. (The cheese and olives have already been added to the pot before the egg is poured over top and stirred in.) Add also some murri and cook until the contents dry out. Next take bread loaf and cut round it so that it is the size of the pot and fry it in oil until done. Then place it over the meat and spices in the pot. If you wish, when emptying the pot, ladle the contents onto the bread and serve, God willing. --------------------- Aruzz mufalfal - p. 98 I am including here Waines' comments on a dish from al-Baghdadi (i'm not including al-Baghdadi's recipe) WAINES: Plain rice dishes, was we know them, are not found in the cooking manuals which may appear surprising given its widespread consumption in medieval times. Possibly this is just a hint of the fact that rice was regarded as poor man's fare. More likely, however, is that rice was used as a thickening agent in other dishes, or cooked with milk and meat as in Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi's recipe for Aruzziya. This one is taken from the later cookbook of al-Baghdadi, and comes closest to what today would be recognized as the usual preparation of rice --------------------- Sumak summaqiya - pp. 100-101 WAINES: This recipe comes from the anonymous work which is in all probability of Egyptian provenance. The dish takes its name from the spice sumac which comes from the fruits of a wild Mediterranean bush, the best qualities growing at the altitude in rocky, mountainous areas away from the coasts. The fruits are dried, crushed and sieved, forming a coarse-grained purple-red powder, the process alluded to in the recipe itself. Sumac has a pleasant astringency owing to the malic acid and is used as a souring agent in place of lemon or vinegar. ORIGINAL: One requires fresh fish, sumac, sesame seed paste, garlic, pepper, onion, dried coriander, lemon (or candied lemon peel [hey this is what Waines added]), hazelnuts, and sesame oil. Mince the onion fine and fry it in oil. Sieve the sumac, grinding it and processing it twice through the sieve until its effective properties have been extracted. Then place the minced onion in a pan and grind in all the other ingredients, adding over it the sesame seed paste and the juice of lemon from which the seeds have been removed. Heat until the mixture has boiled. Wash the fish, cut into large pieces and add to the pan, boiling until done. Place the contents in a vessel. Roast some hazelnuts and grind them adding them to the surface of the dish and then serve. --------------------- 'Ashiqua - pp. 102-013 WAINES: This is one of Ibrahim's preparations belonging to a group of dishes called 'lover' or 'beloved' (ma'shuqa), referring to the female of the pair. It is perhaps the most subtle of all his dishes with a wide range of flavours and aromatic nuances. ORIGINAL: Cut up bustard, or duck, or chicken. Then wash and clean the bird. Put it in a pot with oil and chickpeas and salt. Onion and fresh coriander are both chopped up and boiled and then the stock is poured over the contents of the pot and cooked. Pound the meat of the leg very fine together with fresh and dried coriander and onion and al little pepper and cinnamon. When the foil is cooked, the ground up ingredients are thrown in. Grind up almonds, walnuts, and pistachios together mixed with the juice of unripe grapes and throw in. If you desire to put in spinach or sarmaq, then do so. [My Comments: i'm not sure what sarmaq is... I'll see if it's mentioned in "Medieval Arab Cookery"] --------------------- Mutajjana Ibrahimya - pp. 106-107 WAINES: This preparation, attributed to Ibrahim ibn al-Madhi, is a variation of a recipe which was a favourite of Ibrahim's great nephew, the Caliph al-Wathiq who is also said to have compiled a cookbook. It is unusual for the layered effect it is supposed to achieve ORIGINAL: Take one kaskari chicken or two young birds, remove all their meat and from it make a thin cake and place it in a pot. With the meat add a third of ratl of chopped onion and half uqiya of chopped fresh coriander. Pour over this water to cover it to twice its depth, a third of a ratl of pleasant oil and salt as required. Place the pot on the fire until it comes well to the boil. Next take truffles, of a variety suitable, as much as the weight of the meat and cut them up in a fashion thicker than the cake and fry in the pot until everything therein is cooked. Then add an amount of dried coriander which the finger tips together can hold, pepper the weight of one dirhem, ginger and galingal of each half a dirhem, and cinnamon a dirhem. Stir. Take fifteen eggs, break them into a vessel and beat them together with some fresh coriander and mint, both chopped. Then pour into the pot and stir until the egg has broken up and mixed with the cake and the truffles. Wash the sides of the pot and cover it until required. Let the eggs be poured into the pot only after it has been removed from the fire but before the boiling has entirely ceased. A preparation called Ibrahimi is made in the above manner except that in it there is half a ratl of vinegar mixed with a dirhem's weight of saffron. There is no salt except half a dirhem's weight and there is a quarter ratl of murri al-Razi. The remainder of the preparation is as above. --------------------- 'Adasiya - pp. 108-109 WAINES: This dish is found in the earliest culinary manual compiled, by al-Warraq. Named for its chief ingredient, the lentil ('adas), which is probably the oldest cultivated legume and is native to southwest Asia, possibly northern Syria and Iraq. The original recipe calls for the inclusion of meat, but it can be prepared as well without for those with vegetarian preferences. A variation of this recipe suggests using beet root which could be substituted for the fresh coriander. ORIGINAL: You cook the meat with chopped onion in oil and when the pot has been brought to the boil, and the scum removed, husked lentils are thrown in and cooked thoroughly. Then you pour in vinegar and spice it with coriander and cumin; throw in garlic (as well). Whosoever wishes may throw in ground cheese; whosoever wishes may colour it yellow wit saffron. Throw in beet root without the cheese and garlic. Whosoever wishes may throw in something sweet. --------------------- 'Ijja Mu'tamidiya - pp. 110-111 WAINES: This recipe for medieval omelette has been taken from what is likely the only surviving Egyptian culinary work which is, however, anonymous and undated. The recipe is named after someone called Mu'tamid, a name carried by a number of Caliphs or wazirs. The physician al-Razi recommends using oil in the cooking of omelettes rather than clarified butter (samn) because oil is lighter and make the food easier to digest. He also suggests using only the egg yolks rather than the whites, again for the sake of digestion. ORIGINAL: Take the breasts of two young fowl and slice the meat finely; take a ratl of meat and slice it similarly. Wash the meat and pout it into a pot on the fire. Pour a ratl of oil into the pot and two dirhems of salt. Boil until nearly cooked. Then take a quarter ratl of cheese, slice it, and add it to the pot with the meat. Season with two dirhems of dried coriander and a dirhem each of pepper and cinnamon. Add ten olives, pitted. Break into the container twenty eggs and pour an uqiya of murri over them, beating them vigorously. Stir the contents of the pot and leave on the fire until firm. Then pour over it the egg. Chop up some rue over it. Remove and serve. --------------------- Aruzziya - pp. 112-113 WAINES: Rice cooked in milk seems plain enough, but with the additional flavours of the smoked beef and the fatty pieces of lamb, this dish is one of Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi's more unusual creations. The curing of meat by smoking was an operation often performed in the domestic kitchen. Here the intention seems to be less a process of slow, low-temperature cooking than a complex chemical treatment of the meat by smoke which is finished off by means of frying. ORIGINAL: Take red meat from the lower thighs and also from the tail fat and cut both into fine thin slices. Then smoke the meat until it is well done. Next take a pot and pour oil into it and when sizzling, throw into it the tail and the smoked meat and fry until cooked. Then sprinkle salt and water over it but do not use murri so as not to spoil it. Next, take a large pot and pour fresh milk into it half full and boil, when at the boil throw in a stick of galingal, cinnamon and salt as much as needed. Then take the rice and wash it very well and add it to the milk. When cooked through take the fired meat and its oil, add to the pot and stir in vigorously and serve, God willing. --------------------- Mubazzar - pp. 114-115 WAINES: Literally, this dish means 'seasoned with spices' (abazir). The effect of the preparation is to make spicy, but somewhat dry, pieces of meat which go well either with a rice accompaniment or mixed in with the rice itself. A recipe of Ibrahim ibn al-Madhi. ORIGINAL: Take a side of lamb and stew it in good strong vinegar until it is half done. Remove from the fire and leave it in its vinegar until it has cooled off. Then remove the meat from the vinegar and firmly express its juices. Then throw over it coriander, cumin, pepper and cinnamon each ground. Then lower the meat into the oven and leave until it has lost its moisture. [My Comments: So, is this just cooked meat with all the moisture cooked out or a sort of proto-jerky? In Java in Indonesia, women take meat, cook it, cool it, cut it in very very thin slices, rub it well with a tasty ground spice blend, then place it in frames fitted with screens (and topped with another screen to keep out the flies) on the roof and leave until dried out. This takes a few days - it is brought in at night or if it's rainy, so that it doesn't get moist. It is not eaten as it, however, but cooked with a small amount of water to soften, then shredded as a condiment and eaten with rice.] --------------------- Fustaqiya - pp. 116-117 WAINES: This dish takes its name from the pistachio nut (fustuq). A very simple dish to prepare, it comes from the early collection of recipes compiled by al-Warraq. The pistachio nut,which is native to Iraq and Iran, is a relative of the cashew, which might be substituted if pistachios are not readily available. ORIGINAL: Take the breasts of chickens, and half boil in water and a little salt. Drain off the water, and take the flesh off the bones, pulling it into threads. Then put back into the saucepan, covering with water. Take peeled pistachios as required and pound in the mortar. Put into the saucepan and stir, boiling. When almost cooked, throw in as much sugar as pistachios. Keep stirring until set; then remove. [My Comments: First: Whoa! I really don't agree about substituting cashews for pistachios! Such a huge difference in flavor and texture! While they are also nothing alike, i'd suggest either hazelnuts/filberts or walnuts, since both of these two nuts are used in other Near Eastern recipes. Second: So does this 9th century recipe remind anyone a bit of blancmange or migraust?] --------------------- Bustaniya - pp. 118-119 WAINES: This is a preparation of one Abu Samin about whom nothing is known for certain but who may have been a professional chef in the employ of the Caliph al-Wathiq. If so, Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi would surely have known of his skills. His name which means "Father of Corpulence', or 'obesity' if one is being less kind, seem appropriate to his profession. The dish is named not after any particular ingredient, as was the custom, but after the orchard (bustan) from which the selection of fruits was made. ORIGINAL: Take small sour pears, wash and wrap in a moist cloth if they are dried pears, but if they are fresh, then macerate them in water and strain through a sieve. Then take chicken breasts, and cut them lengthwise into finger-sized strips and add to it as much meat as you wish. Next throw in peaches and boil (with the meat). Season the pot with pepper and ma'kamakh, oil and some spices, some sugar, wine vinegar, and five almonds ground up fine; add to the pot. Then break eggs over (the contents) and allow to settle, God willing. [My Comments: One of the dishes I cooked as "Iron Chef Persian", although I left out the ma'kamakh] Edited by Mark S. Harris E-Arab-recip-art Page 16 of 16