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All text and pictures of dishes are the intellectual property of
Coquinaria and may not be reproduced without permission and acknowledgement..
recipe september/october 2005
Arab tidbits
A small selection of medieval "party
food
Dutch
version of this recipe
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The recipes on this page were made, together with
clareit and medieval
wafers, for the opening of an exhibition
in the Utrecht
University Museum on the medieval text Sidrac.
This text has some sources in medieval arab literature, so it was decided that
medieval arab dishes would be served.
The food was to be eaten by people standing with a glass in their hands. That is
why the modern adaptations of the recipes on this page deviate more from the
original ones than usual.
There are three recipes: one for spicy
meatballs, and two for small pasties, with a stuffing with aubergines or
eggplants and with spinach.
The recipes come from two cookbooks: the meatballs and the stuffing with
aubergines are taken from the thirteenth century Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook. You can read
more about this book at the recipe for deep-fried
braids. The stuffing with spinach is taken from the Kitab al-Tabikh-al-Baghdadi
(also from the thirteenth century).
This cookbook is mentioned more extensively at the recipe for meatballs
in aubergine sauce, where there is also more information on medieval arab
cooking. (See also the bibliography below)
It will not surprise you that these recipes were
written in arabic. Since I lack any knowledge of that language, I present here
the translations by A.J. Arberry and Charles Perry as found in the editions
mentioned in the bibliography below..
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From the Anonymous
Andalusian Cookbook chapter 6: A Dish of Meatballs
Make meatballs, as told before, and put the pot on the fire. Put in it a spoon of vinegar and another of murri, spices, an onion pounded with cilantro and salt, a little thyme, a clove of garlic and enough rue and fresh water as needed until it is nearly done. Throw in the meatballs and dot with egg yolks and coat the contents of the pot with the whites, and add whole pine nuts and almonds. Ladle out and sprinkle with pepper, cinnamon and rue. |
From the Anonymous
Andalusian Cookbook chapter 7: Description of Mahshi (a stuffed dish) With Eggplants
Take sweet eggplants, peel them and boil in salted water until done, then remove their seedy flesh to one side. Make mahmiyya for the eggplants in a tajine. Add as much bread crumbs [as the quantity of eggplant], and pepper, coriander seed, cinnamon, saffron, chopped almond and as many eggs as you need; beat it all and cover with plenty of oil and bury in it whole egg yolks. Then plant the seedy flesh in it and put in an oven at moderate heat and leave until it has finished cooking and binds and is brown on top, then take out and leave until its heat flags and leave it. You might pound in it whatever meats of fried fowl you have ready, and each will result in a different dish; there are some who serve it with juices of coriander and mint. |
From the Kitab al-Tabikh-al-Baghdadi
(Medieval Arab Cookery p.79): Isfanakh
Mutajjan (fried spinach)
Take spinach, cut off the lower roots, and wash: then boil lightly in
salt and water, and dry. Refine sesame-oil, drop in the spinach, and stir
until fragrant. Chop up a little garlic, and add. Sprinkle with
fine-ground cumin, dry coriander and cinnamon: then remove. |
Spicy
meatballs
The recipe starts with: "Make meatballs, as told before".
From chapter 5 of the Anonymous Andalusian
Cookbook, "Preparation of Meatballs from Any Meat You Wish"
I take it that all ingredients mentioned in the first part of the recipe are to
be mixed with the ground meat, then the mixture is to be rolled into meatballs
that can be either boiled or broiled. And then ... It seems that the meatballs
are to be glazed with eggyolks and then the eggwhites are to be poured over it
seperately? Other recipes have instructions like ""break eggs into it
and cover it" (recipe for Jimliyya ch.5) or "cover the contents of the
pot with an egg and pour it out" (recipe for Dish of meat with walnuts and
mastic", also ch.5). Because the meatballs were meant to be eaten at a
reception (people standing around with a glass in one hand and a bite in the
other) I decided to omit the adding of eggyolks and whites in the
adaptation.
(to make 50 to 75 small meatballs)
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List of ingredients:
For the meatballs:
500 gram (1 pound) minced lamb meat
1 egg
1 Tbsp. in all from thyme, corianderseed, cumin, saffron (ratio=3:3:2:1)
pepper,salt to taste
crumbs of3 slices of white bread
1/2 onion, chopped
1 1/2 Tbsp. chopped coriander (cilantro) leaves
1/2 Tbsp. chopped rue
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp. murri
And:
3 Tbsp. sesame oil or olive oil
1 tsp. murri
1 dl (1/2 cup) chicken broth
2 Tbsp. toasted pine nuts and slivered almonds
several twigs of rue, for decoration
Preparation in advance:
Mix everything for the meatballs. Form into small balls which can be eaten in
one bite.
Preparation:
Heat the oil in a wide frying pan. Add the meatballs and brown them. Add chicken
broth and murri, bring to the boil and temper the heat until the meatballs are
done.
To serve:
Sprinkle the meatballs just before serving with toasted pine nuts and almond
slivers, and adorn with twigs of rue if you have them.
The balls are to be eaten at room temperature, or slightly warm, but not
sizzling hot. That would not be comfortable when one is to eat them by hand.
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Pasties
The idea to use these recipes for aubergine (egg plant) and spinach as
stuffing for pasties is not authentic. But even in those days there were already
small pasties, called "sanbusaj", predecessors of samosas. In the Kitab al-Tabikh-al-Baghdadi
these pasties are baked in sesame oil. The dough consisted of wheat flour with
or without yeast. There is also a "flat bread" which is stuffed with
samosa stuffing. Starch or amylum is also mentioned in recipes, but you can't
make dough from starch alone (see Charles Perry (2)).
For the pasties I chose to use filo dough. This dough is not specifically
mentioned in the arab cookbooks I saw, but is does seem to be fairly authentic
for the period. From the eleventh century onward there is a Turkish bread
consisting of layers, the direct ancestor of filo dough. It wasn't until around
1500 that the dough sheets were rolled out or spread out until they were paper
thin, although extremely thin sheets were mentioned before (a poet describes
them as "grasshoppers' wings" Charles
Perry (2)).
Filo dough is made with wheat flour, water, oil and salt. In commercially
produced filo dough starch is also added. The starch makes the dough slightly
transparent when it is baked. For these pasties I have been lazy and used filo
dough bought from a shop.
When you buy filo dough it's problaby frozen and has to thaw. Once you start to
use it you must keep the dough in foil and/or a moist towel because it dries
very quickly.
Preparation:
Spread one sheet of filo dough on your work top. Brush with olive or sesame oil.
Olive oil was used in the west, sesame oil in the east of tha arab countries. I
used sesame oil because I like the taste best in this dish. Cover the sheet with
another sheet of dough, brush it with oil, and cover this sheet with a third
sheet. Now, using a pizza-cutter, divide the sheets in squares of 5 by 5
centimeters (2 by 2 inches). Brush the edges of the squares again with oil, and
place on every square a teaspoon of stuffing. Now you can make either triangles
by simply folding the squares diagonally, or little square hats by taking the
four points and pinch them together. If you use both stuffings, you could shape
the pasties differently according to the stuffing, so people know what each
pasty contains.
Put the pasties on an oiled baking tin and place this in the middle of a
prehated oven for 25 minutes on 180 dgC (350 dgF). If you bake the pasties in
advance, you'll have to reheat them in the oven to make them crisp again: 5
minutes on 200 dgC (400 dgF). You can not heat them in the microwave, that won't
make them crisp.
To serve:
You can serve these pasties warm or at room temperature. The pomegranate in the
picture was meant as decoration, but it was a very good idea to dip the pasties
into the slightly sour juice. Yoghurt with mint would also have been a good
idea.
Aubergine
stuffing
Warning: This adaptation is VERY adapted! Only the ingredients from the
original recipe are the same.
As you can read in the origal recipe the aubergine is peeled and boiled in
salted water, the other ingredients are mixed seperatedly, and then the
aubergine is added together with whole, hardboiled egg yolks. Oil is poured over
this, then the whole goes in the oven in a tagine until it has formed a brown
crust (see the note
of Perry for this recipe).
I have omitted the boiled yolks, roasted the aubergine instead of cooking it,
and mixed everything to obtain a stuffing for pasties.
(For 20 to 40 pasties)
Ingredients:
1 aubergine
3 slices of white bread, crumbled without the crust
1 Tbsp. in all of powdered coriander, pepper, cinnamon, saffron
(ratio=6:3:3:1)
1 1/2 Tbsp. chopped or ground almonds
1 Tbsp. chopped coriander and mint leaves (ratio=3:4)
1 small egg, stirred
salt to taste
Preparation in advance:
Halve the aubergine lengthwise, sprinkle the cut sides with salt, rinse the salt
off after 30 minutes, pat the aubergines dry. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 175
dgC (345 dgF). Roast the aubergine for 30 minutes. Let the aubergine
halves cool slightly, then peel off the skin.
Preparation:
Mash the aubergine flesh to a pulp, using a blender or fork. Add the other
ingredients, mix well. Use this as stuffing for the pasties (see above).
Spinach
stuffing
The adaptation of this recipe has remained close to the original
(except for the use of the spinach as stuffing).
(For 20 to 40 pasties)
Ingredients:
1 kilo spinach (2 pounds/7 dry quarts), or 750 gram (1 1/2 pound/3 1/4 dry
quarts) wild/winter spinach
1 Tbsp. in all of powdered cumin, coriander, cinnamon (ratio=3:2:1)
salt and pepper to taste
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. sesame oil
1 egg yolk (optional)
Preparation in advance:
Wash the spinach. Put it in a pan without adding water (the spinach has enough
of its own), bring to the boil and heat until the spinach has lost its volume.
Drain well, squeeze to get rid of the last excess water. Then chop the spinach.
Preparation:
Heat the sesame oil in a low, wide pan. Lower the fire, add the chopped garlic,
and after a few moments the spices. Mix, and immediately add the spinach.
Stirfry until everything is mixed well.
When using the spinach for pasties let the spinach cool to room temperature
before stuffing. You can add a raw egg yolk to the spinach, but this is not
essential.
This stirfried spinach can also be served as a side course or vegetable, as is
the original intention of the medieval recipe.
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Murri: A
spicy sauce made from fermented grain, used in medieval arab recipes. The
recipe.
Sesame oil:
Meditteranean sesame oil is pressed from raw seeds, chinese sesame oil is
pressed from toasted seeds, resulting in a stronger flavoured, darker oil. So
take care that you use the right sesame oil.
Rue: A
little shrub (Ruta graveolens), indigenous to Southern Europe. The
odiferous plant has a strong, bitter taste. The ancient Greeks and Romans loved
rue, and it is still an ingredient in the Italian drink Grappa Ruta. In
modern cuisine rue has mostly dissappeared, which is a pity. A few rue leaves in
broth are very good. However, it is thought to be an antaphrodisiac
(quelches lust), and pregnant women must be careful not to use too much of it,
because it could also be abortive. But a leaf or two won't do any harm.
Rue plants can be found at garden centers. It is quite decorative, a
semi-perennial with small yellow flowers that can be used to decorate any dish.
Bibliography
The editions mentioned are the ones in my
possession. The links are to available editions.
A.J. Arberry, A Baghdad Cookery Book (Kitab ab-al-Tabikh) (Islamic
Culture XIII 1939), reprinted with commentary by C. Perry in Medieval Arab
Cookery. Essays and Translations (M. Rodinson and C. Perry), Prospect Books, 2001, pp.19/89.
Alan
Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Charles
Perry (1) An
anonymous Andalusian cookbook of the 13th century. Translated into english
by Charles Perry, with notes by C.Perry, D.Friedman a.o. As far as I know this
edition has never been printed on paper. There is a spanish edition of this cook
book from 1965 that is difficult to obtain (at least, for me it is), titled Kitāb al-Tabīkh 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 not only published this cookbook, but also some other popular medieval
cookbooks.
Charles
Perry (2), "What to order in ninth-century Baghdad". In Maxime Rodinson, A.J. Arberry, Charles Perry,
Medieval Arab
Cookery. Essays and Translations. Prospect Books, 2001, pp 219/223.
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This page was updated on
23-07-09 (d-m-y).
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All text and pictures of dishes are the intellectual property of
Coquinaria and may not be reproduced without permission and acknowledgement..
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