Skip to main content

Medieval Arab Dinner



Hummus with Ground Nuts

Take boiled chickpeas and pound finely. Take vinegar, good oil, tahini, pepper, atraf tib (spice blend, recipe in: https://www.theophanus-cauldron.net/atraf-al-tib/), mint, parsley, thyme, a little of walnuts, almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, cinnamon, caraway, dried coriander, salt, salted lemons, and olives. Spread. Leave  one day and one night and serve. 

-Kanz al-Fawa'id fi Tanwi al-Mawa'id


Lamb with Greens and Yogurt 

Boil a ratl of meat. Remove the scum. Cook it part way. Add to it chopped green leaves of chard. Cook it until it is well done. Remove the meat, its broth and the chard. Then put in a pound of yogurt and a uqiyah of rice. Continue to stir until rice is cooked. Add to it the meat, swiss chard and the broth. The broth should be a little. Cook it and remove. Sprinkle mint leaves on it. After ladling it into a bowl, put pounded garlic on top. Turnips can be used instead of chard, same goes for spinach. 

- Ibn al-'Adim, Kitab al-Wuslah (...)



Honey and Almond Candy 

Take good honey as much as you wish and pour it into a large copper pot with a rounded bottom and light a gentle fire beneath it. Take off its froth, strain it and discard. Take washed olive oil or the oil of hulled sesame seeds. If the amount of honey is one ratl, then take half a ratl of sesame oil or olive oil. Take starch in the amount of a quarter of the honey allowing it to absorb lest it to become sour. Take the amount of saffron that you want an add it to the cornstarch. Pour it into the pot over the honey and sesame oil and stir gently over a gentle fire until it pulls from the sides. Add almonds, as much as you prefer, letting it ticken until the sesame oil is absorbed and hardens, is ready. Remove from the heat. Spread on a platter, God willing. 
- Al-Warraq, Abu Muhammad al-Muzaffar (...)




Bibliography: Salloum, Habeeb et al. - Scheherazade's Feasts, Foods of the Medieval World, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. 




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Recipe: Cheese Ravioli, 16th Century (Receita: Ravioli, Séc. XVI).

     Take spinach and blanch it as if you were making cooked spinach, and chop it small. Take approximately one handful, when it is chopped, cheese or meat from a chicken or capon that was boiled or roasted. Then take twice as much cheese as herb, or of chicken an equal amount, and beat two or three eggs into it and make a good dough, put salt and pepper into it and make a dough with good flour, as if you would make a tart, and when you have made little flat cakes of dough then put a small ball of filling on the edge of the flat cake and form it into a dumpling. And press it together well along the edges and place it in broth and let it cook about as long as for a softboiled egg. The meat should be finely chopped and the cheese finely grated.  Bibliography: Sabina Welser's Cookbook, tr. from Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin (c. 1553) by Valoise Armstrong, Little Rock, Arizona, 1998    in  David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook - How to Milk an Alm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Recipe: Chicken Pie, Tudor (Empada de Galinha, Séc. XVI).

Pastry (I used puff pastry) - 75g currants - 75g raisins - 6 sliced prunes - 2 tbs sugar - 2 blades mace - 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon - 675g chicken - 35g butter - 1 egg - 1tbs white wine - 1 tbs rosewater - 1 tbs white wine vinegar - large pinch of cinnamon Line a cake tin or pie dish with the pastry. Mix the dried fruit, mace,  half tsp cinnamon and half the sugar, put a little of this mixture into the pie, layer it with the chicken, finishing with the fruit mixture and the butter in pieces, cover with a pastry lid. Bake at 150º, until the meat is tender. Beat the remaining ingredients together, cut the lid out of the pie, pour them in, and shake until incorporated with the pie juices. Brears, Peter - Cooking and Dining in Tudor and Early Stuart England,  Prospect Books, 2005, pág. 159, 160.  Massa (usei massa folhada) - 75g de groselhas - 75g de passas - 6 ameixas cortadas - 2 colheres de sopa de açúcar - 2 blades mace  - 1/2 colher de chá de canela e...
Post a Comment
Read more