recipe november/december 2004
Dafâir: deep-fried braids.
An Arabic recipe from the thirteenth century Dutch
version of this recipe
Arabian pastry is delicious. Sweet
and rich, but delicious.
This has remained unchanged from medieval times on, when sweet pastry was served
after a meal. You can imagine that after a copious meal with a plethora of
mouth-watering dishes the pastry had to be very special to be able to appeal to
the already satisfied eater!
The dough for the pastry could be enriched with nuts: almonds, pistacchio's,
pine nuts. Fruit, either fresh or dried, was not used as stuffing. Fruit was
served as a separate course before the pastry.
This recipe is taken from an Aarabic
cookbook that was actually written "in Europe", in Andalus (Southern
Spain), in the thirteenth century. The occupation by the Moors was already
nearing its end, but the emirate of Granada managed to hold on until 1492, when
it was conquered by catholic Castilia.
The author of the cookbook is not known. The book may have been published
anonymous, but as the first pages of the manuscript are missing (and that is
where the author's name and dedication would have been) we do not know this for
sure.The manuscript now rests at the Bibliothèque
Nationale in Paris (ms G.S.Colin arabe 7009 BNParis).
The first recipes in the manuscript as it is now are for dishes with meat.
Occasionally the author mentions the origin of a recipe (like in the third
recipe: "This is the recipe by Sayyid Abu al-Hassan and others in
Morocco"). Then follows a part on "thickened and coated dishes"
(egss will be poured over the dish in the hot pan just before serving to set, or
the dish will be thickened with ground almonds) - a short chapter on Hippocrates
- on differences in eating-customs in different countries - cooking gear - the
order of the service of dishes - simple dishes - recipes from the cookbook
of Ibrahim
ben al-Mahdi - vegetables - fish - couscous, rice, harisa, noodles and such -
several recipes for bread and pastry (savoury and sweet) and preparations with
sugar - additional chapter on medicines.
This recipe is taken from An
anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th centuryin the translation of Charles Perry. Because this is a digital edition,
there is no page-number. I present the english translation as I have found it on
the internet:
Take what you will of white
flour or of semolina, which is better in these things. Moisten it with hot
water after sifting, and knead well, after adding some fine flour,
leavening, and salt. Moisten it again and again until it has middling
consistency. Then break into it, for each ratl
of semolina, five eggs and a dirham of
saffron, and beat all this very well, and put the dough in a dish, cover
it and leave it to rise, and the way to tell when this is done is what was
mentioned before [it holds an indentation]. When it has risen, clean a
frying pan and fill it with fresh oil, then put it on the fire. When it
starts to boil, make braids of the leavened dough like hair-braids, of a
handspan or less in size. Coat them with oil and throw them in the oil and
fry them until they brown. When their cooking is done, arrange them on an
earthenware plate and pour over them skimmed honey spiced with
pepper,
cinnamon, Chinese cinnamon, and lavender. Sprinkle it with ground sugar
and present it, God willing. This same way you make isfunj, except
that the dough for the isfunj will be rather
light. Leave out the saffron, make it into balls and fry them in that
shape, God willing. And if you wish stuffed dafâir or isfunj,
stuff them with a filling of almonds and sugar, as indicated for making qâhiriyât.
Ingredients:
150 gram (1 cup - 3 Tbsp.) semolina (coursely ground durum wheat)
100 gram (3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp.) wheat flour
1/2 decilitre (1/4 cup) water
1/2 decilitre (1/4 cup) sourdough
1 egg
pinch of salt (even sweet pastry needs some)
1/2 tsp. saffron, ground in 2 tsp. hot water
oil for deep-frying
optional:
50 gram (1/3 cup) finely chopped pistacchio nuts or almonds
sausje:
1,5 decilitre (2/3 cup) runny honey
black pepper to taste (but be generous), freshly ground
1 tsp. cinnamon (cassia is chinese cinnamon)
1/2 Tbsp. finely ground lavender flowers
Preparation in advance:
Prepare the dough: Moisten the semolina by adding the water little by little.
Then add sourdough, salt, and 50 grams flour, knead until you have an elastic
dough.
Stir the saffron through the egg, incorporate this in the dough. Now you add the
rest of the flour, little by little, until the dough has the consistency of a
soft dough for bread (like when you are making brioche). Put the dough in a
bowl, covered with a moist towel, and leave it somewhere warm (I prefer the
closet where the water heater is). You should let the dough rise for at least
two hours, because sourdough takes longer than commercial yeast to work.
If you wish, you can add finely chopped nuts to the dough.
While the dough rises, you can make the sauce: temper the honey with finely
ground pepper, cinnamon and lavender.
Preparation:
Divide the dough in six or eight portions. Sprinkle the worktop and your hands
with flour. Take one portion of the dough, and roll, pull or manipulate it until
you have a long, thin string. Cut this in three equal strings of equal length,
and plait them into a braid. Take care to pinch the ends of the strings
together. Make six or eight braids in this manner. Let the braids rest for
fifteen minutes before deep-frying.
Heat neutral oil in a deep-frying pan to a temperature of 170 dg C (or ... F).
Fry the braids one or two at the time until they have turned golden brown. Turn
them once while deep-frying. The process will take just a few minutes. Drain the
fried braids on paper towels.
Heat the spiced honey slightly in a microwave to facilitate pouring.
To serve:
Put the braids on a decorative plate. Drizzle some of the spiced honey over
them, and sprinkle with sugar. This should be powdered sugar, but I chose
coloured granulated sugar instead (see picture).
Notes: ratl: measure of weight, 468.75 gram (about a pound) dirham: measure of weight, 3.9 gram (slightly less
than a teaspoon) isfunj: pastry, often deep-fried. The word comes
from the Latin spongium, because of the honey (or milk, or butter, or
syrup) that the pastry absorbs -like a sponge. qahiriyât:
pastry in the form of a ring (like doughnuts?) with finely ground almonds or
pistachio's mixed in with the flour, that is dipped in syrup or honey after
deep-frying. It bears the name of calif al-Qâhir bil-lâh (died in AD 934).
saffron
An
anonymous Andalusian cookbook of the 13th century. Translated in
English by Charles Perry, with notes by C.Perry, D.Friedman a.o.. As far as I
know, this edition has never been printed. There is an edition of a spanish
translation from 1965, difficult to get your hands on (Kitâb al-Tabîkh fi'l-Maghrib wa'l-Anndalus fi'asr al-Muwahhidin: La cucina ispano-magrebina in epoca almohade secondo un manoscritto
anonimo, by D. Ambrosio Huici-Miranda, Madrid, 1965).
David Friedman
has published not the english translation on his site, along with translations
in english of some other popular medieval cookbooks. On this
page yuo can find the recipe for dafâir.
