New and Updated Recipes

[These are recipes that have mostly been added to the hardcopy of the Miscellany. A few (the ones with asterisks) are updated versions of ones already in the previous edition--which is the one that is available on the web, unless it has been updated.

Current contents of file (11/12/95: 30 recipes)

Bread

Platina Bread

Indian Breads

Vegetables:

Sag

On Preparing Carrots and Parsnips

Armored Turnips

Russian Cabbage or Greens

Islamic dishes:

Recipe for Mu'allak

Simple White Tafâ yâ , Called Isfî dhbâ ja

A Baqliyya of Ziryab's

Recipe for the Barmakiyya

Qutab or Sanbusa

Counterfeit (Vegetarian) Isfî riyâ of Garbanzos

Zirbaya

Anjudhâ niyyah of Yahya b. Khalid al-Barmaki

Recipe for the Fried Version of the Same [Dusted Eggplant]

Khichri

Fresh Beans With Meat, Called Fustuqiyya

Tharda of Zabarbada

Chicken Covered With Walnuts and Saffron

Seafood:

Sturgeon pour Porpeys

Soups:

Poultry:

How you want to make a food of hens

Garbage

Meat Dishes:

Meat, Cheese and Egg Pies:

Desserts, Appetisers, Etc.:

Ka'k Stuffed with Sugar

Murakkaba

Preparation of Musammana [Buttered] Which Is Muwarraqa [Leafy] Khushkananaj

Makshufa

Recipe for Mujabbana (Fried Cheese Pie)

Golden Morsels

Pynade

Ein gute fü lle

Miscellaneous:

Onion Juice

Bread

Bread

Ain i Akbari

There is a large kind, baked in an oven, made of 10 s. flour; 5 s. milk; 1 1/2 s. ghi; 1/4 s. salt. They make also smaller ones. The thin kind is baked on an iron plate. One ser will give fifteen, or even more. There are various ways of making it; one kind is called chapati, which is sometimes made of khushka; it tastes very well when served hot.

1 lb = 3 1/2 c flour

1/2 lb = 1 c milk

2.4 oz ghee = 3/8-1/2 c

.4 oz salt = 1/2 T

Melt the ghee, stir it into the flour with a fork until there are only very small lumps. Stir in the milk until thoroughly mixed, knead briefly. Put the ball of dough in a bowl covered by a damp cloth and leave for at least an hour.

Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, adding a little extra flour if necessary. Either:

Take a ball of dough about 2" in diameter, roll it out to about a 5" diameter circle. Cook it in a hot frying pan without grease. After about 2 minutes it should start to puff up a little in places. Turn it. Cook another 2 minutes. Turn it. Cook another 2 minutes. It should be done. The recipe should make about 11 of these.

Take a ball of dough about 3" in diameter. Roll it down to a circle about 7" in diameter and 1/4" thick. Heat a baking sheet in a 450deg. oven. Put the circle of dough on it in the oven. Bake about 6 minutes; it should be puffing up. Turn it over. Bake about 4 minutes more. Take it out. The recipe should make about 5 of these.

On Bread

Platina pp. 13-14

... Therefore I recommend to anyone who is a baker that he use flour from wheat meal, well ground and then passed through a fine seive to sift it; then put it in a bread pan with warm water, to which has been added salt, after the manner of the people of Ferrari in Italy. After adding the right amount of leaven, keep it in a damp place if you can and let it rise. ... The bread should be well baked in an oven, and not on the same day; bread from fresh flour is most nourishing of all, and should be baked slowly.

flour 6 3/4 c: 1 c whole wheat, 5 1/4 c white at first, 1/2 c later

warm water 2 1/4 c

salt T

sourdough 1 1/2 c

Put sourdough in a bowl. Add warm (not hot!) water and salt, mix. Add whole wheat flour, then white, 1 or 2 c at a time, first stirring in with a wooden spoon and then kneading it in. Cover with a wet towel, set aside. Let rise overnight (16-20 hours). Turn out on a floured board, shape into two or three round loaves, working in another 1/2 c or so of flour. Let rise again in a warm place for an hour. Bake at 350deg. about 50 minutes. Made 2 loaves, about 8" across, 3"-4" thick, about 1.5 lb, or three smaller loaves.

Vegetables

Sag

Ain I Akbari no. 9

Sag: It is made of spinach, and other greens, and is one of the most pleasant dishes. 10 s. spinach, fennel, etc., 1 1/2 s. ghee; 1 s. onions; 1/2 s. fresh ginger; 5 1/2 m. of pepper; 1/2 m. of cardamons and cloves; this gives six dishes.

Note: Note: 1 dam = .7 oz, 1 ser = 2 lb 2 oz and 1 misqal = 1/6 oz. See modern recipe for saag in GCI p. 128.

10 oz spinach, fresh or frozen

3 oz fennel

[ other greens: cabbage, sorrel, mint are mentioned in this book]

2 oz (~ 4 T) ghee

1 1/3 oz onions

fresh ginger 2/3 oz peeled and chopped

pepper .036 oz= 1/2 t

cardamon .0033 oz= 1/20 t

cloves .0033 oz = 1/20 t

[check weight to volume conversions more carefully]

Wash and chop the greens, put them in a pot with everything else except the ghi, plus 1/4 c water. Cook about 35 minutes on medium heat, stirring occasionally. add ghee. Cook another few minutes, stirring occasionally.

note: We have no cooking instructions for this dish, only ingredients and quantities; we are going by a recipe for Saag in a modern Indian cookbook. An alternative interpretation is that the greens etc. are fried in the ghee.

On Preparing Carrots and Parsnips (64 people)

Platina

... The parsnip should be boiled twice, the first liquid thrown away and cooked the second time with lettuce. Then it is put on a plate and dressed with salt, vinegar, coriander, and pepper, and is very fit to serve. ... The carrot is prepared in the same way as the parsnip, but is considered more pleasant when cooked under warm ashes and coals. When it has been taken out and cooled a little, it should be peeled thoroughly, cleaned of ashes, cut up in little pieces, and put in a dish; salt should be added, and oil and vinegar and a little defrutum or must, and then a few mild herbs sprinkled over.

6 lb carrots

4 lb lettuce

1 T salt

1/2 c vinegar

4 t coriander

1/2 t pepper

Wash carrots, wash andtear up lettuce. Put carrots in boiling water, boil 12 minutes. Drain them. Put carrots and lettuce in boiling water for another 6 minutes. Drain them. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Note: this is only the first of the two alternative versions, done with carrots. At some point we should try the parsnip version, and the second carrot version.

Armored Turnips (64 people)

Platina book 8

Cut up turnips that have been either boiled or cooked under the ashes. Likewise do the same with rich cheese, not too ripe. These should be smaller morsels than the turnips, though. In a pan greased with butter or liquamen, make a layer of cheese first, then a layer of turnips, and so on, all the while pouring in spice and some butter, from time to time. This dish is quickly cooked and should be eaten quickly, too.

8 lb turnips

5 lb cheddar cheese

16 T butter

4 t cinnamon

2 t ginger

2 t pepper

2 2/3 T sugar

Bring water to a boil, boil turnips about 30 minutes, peel and slice. Slice cheese thinner than turnips, with slices about the same size. Layer turnips, sliced cheese, butter and spices in baking pans, and bake 20 minutes at 350deg. .

Rapes Armate

Make to cook the turnips under the (brascia), or boil it whole and (sane), and cut it in slices great as much as one (costa) of a knife; and you will have some good fat cheese cut in slices as large/wide as the turnips, but thinner; and have some sugar some pepper and some sweet spices mixed together; and you will prepare in a pan (da) tart by order on the bottom of that, slices of cheese in such a way that they make a bottom crust, and over that put a (solar) of turnip (buttandoli/throwing it) above some of the spices written above and some fresh butter abundantly; and thus step by step you will go putting together the turnip, the cheese so much that the pan will be full, make it to cook for a quarter hour or more, in the fashion of a tort. And this ornamentation if you wish to give to the following as well.

Russian Cabbage or Greens

Domostroi pp. 162-3

Chop cabbage, greens, or a mixture of both very fine, then wash them well. Boil or steam them for a long time. On meat days, put in red meat, ham, or a little pork fat; add cream or egg whites and warm the mixture. During a fast, saturate the greens with a little broth, or add some fat and steam it well. Add some groats, salt, and sour cabbage soup; then heat it. Cook kasha the same way: steam it well with lard, oil, or herring in a broth.

Note: the ingredient translated as "sour cabbage soup" turns up elsewhere in the Domostroi in lists of things to brew; the quote below suggests that it may really be something like alegar (beer vinegar). We therefore use malt vinegar.

"For brewing beer, ale, or sour cabbage soup, take malt or meal and hops. Beer from the first grade makes good sour cabbage soup. You can make vinegar, too, from a good mash."

2 3/4 lb green cabbage (1 head)

3/4 lb turnip greens

3 c water

meat: 1 1/2 lb beef or lamb

6 egg whites (or cream)

1 c dry buckwheat groats

2 t salt

"sour cabbage soup": 4 t malt vinegar

Chop cabbage and greens very fine. Bring water to a boil, add cabbage and greens and simmer 30 minutes covered. Cut meat into bite-sized chunks. Add meat and simmer another 25 minutes (this time probably depends on the cut of meat). Add groats, salt and vinegar, and cook another 15 minutes uncovered on moderate heat, until the liquid is almost absorbed. Stir in egg whites, heat for a minute or two, and remove from heat.

This is one possible interpretation of a recipe with lots of alternatives. In particular, it is not clear whether the groats, salt, and "sour cabbage soup" belong only to the fast-day version or to both meat-day and fast-day versions; we have assumed the latter.

Islamic dishes

Recipe for Mu'allak

Andalusian p. A-57

Take fat young mutton, clean it and cut the meat into big pieces. Put it in the earthenware pot and add pepper, onion, oil and coriander. Cook until the meat is done, then remove it and set it aside. Strain the bones from the broth and return it to a quiet fire. When it has boiled, put in crumbs made from thin bread which was made from wheat dough and add soft, rubbed cheese, as much as the crumbs. Blend with a spoon until it makes one mass and when its broth has dried up, pour on fresh milk and leave it until its foam is dispersed. Then return the meat that was removed and when it has formed a mass, take it off the fire, leave it a little and use it.

1 3/8 lb mutton for stew (or lamb) 1 1/4 t coriander

1 1/2 c water 1 c breadcrumbs = 4 oz

1/2 t pepper 1/2 c = 4 oz ricotta cheese

10 oz onion = 2 1/2 c chopped 1/2 c milk

1 T oil

Slice onions. Put meat, which was bought cut up, onions, pepper, coriander, and oil into heavy pot, cover and bring to a boil. Simmer 2 hours (if you are using lamb reduce time to 45 minutes). Strain out meat and onions. Bring broth back to a boil, add breadcrumbs, simmer while stirring 2 minutes. Add ricotta cheese, simmer another 5 minutes while stirring constantly. Add milk and bring back to a simmer; add meat and onions and heat, stirring, about 2-3 minutes.

Simple White Tafâ yâ , Called Isfî dhbâ ja[1]

This is a dish of moderate nutrition, suitable for weak stomachs, much praised for increasing the blood, good for the healthy and the scrawny; it is material and substance for all kinds of dishes.

Its Recipe:

Take the meat of a young, plump lamb. Cut it in little pieces and put it in a clean pot with salt, pepper, coriander, a little juice of pounded onion, a spoonful of fresh oil and a sufficient amount of water. Put it over a gentle fire and be careful to stir it; put in meatballs and some peeled, split almonds. When the meat is done and has finished cooking, set the pot on the ashes until it is cooled. He who wants this tafaya green can give it this color with cilantro juice alone or with a little mint juice.

2 lb lamb meatballs: 1 lb ground lamb

1 t salt 1 egg

1/2 t pepper 1 t onion juice

1 t coriander 2 T flour

2 t onion juice 1 t vinegar

1/2 T oil 1/4 t pepper

2 1/2 c water 3/4 t murri

3 cloves garlic, chopped fine

1/4 c blanched almonds 1/2 t coriander

(4 T cilantro or mint juice) 1/4 t cumin

1/4 t cinnamon

Cut lamb into bite-sized pieces and put in pot with salt, pepper, corinader, onion juice, oil, and water, simmer uncovered about 40 minutes. Mix all ingredients for meatballs. Reduce about 8 small stalks of cilantro to juice in a mortar with a couple of tablespoons of water. When meat has cooked, take lumps of meatball mixture, squeeze together, and drop into pot. Add almonds. Simmer about another 10 minutes, add cilantro juice, and serve.

A Baqliyya of Ziryab's[2]

Take the flesh of a young fat lamb, put in the pot with salt, onion, coriander seed, pepper, caraway, two spoons of oil and one of murri naqî '; put on a moderate fire and then take cabbage, its tender "eyes"; take off the leaves and chop small with the heads, wash, and when the meat is almost done, add the cabbage. Then pound red meat from its tender parts and beat in the bowl with eggs and the crumb [that is, everything but the crust] of bread, almonds, pepper, coriander and caraway; cover the pot with this little by little and leave on the coals until the sauce dries and the grease comes to the top and serve.

1 lb lamb for stew 1 1/2 lb cabbage

1 t salt 5 oz lamb, ground

1 medium onion = 3/8 lb 2 eggs

1/2 t coriander 1/2 c breadcrumbs

1/4 t pepper 1/4 c blanched almonds

1/2 t caraway 1/8 t pepper

2 T oil 1/4 t coriander

1 T murri 1/8 t caraway

Wash and chop cabbage. Put cut-up lamb, onion, first set of spices above, oil, and murri in a pot and cook over middling high heat, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. Stir in cabbage and cook covered for 20 minutes; the cabbage will yield a lot of liquid. Meanwhile, grind remaining lamb and mix with remaining ingredients. Add this mixture to pot by spoonfuls until the top is mostly covered. Cook covered until the topping is cooked through, then uncovered until most of the liquid is gone, about an hour in all on low heat.

Note: this would work with as much as half again the amount of cabbage.

Recipe for the Barmakiyya*

Andalusian p. A-9

It is made with hens, pigeons, ring doves, small birds, or lamb. Take what you have of it, then clean it and cut it and put it in a pot with salt and onion, pepper, coriander and lavender or cinnamon, some murri naqi, and oil. Put it over a gentle fire until it is nearly done and the sauce is dried. Take it out and fry it with mild oil without overdoing it, and leave it aside. Then take fine flour and semolina, make a well-made dough with yeast, and if it has some oil it will be more flavorful. Then stretch this out into a thin loaf and inside this put the fried and cooked meat of these birds, cover it with another thin loaf, press the ends together and place it in the oven, and when the bread is done, take it out. It is very good for journeying; make it with fish and that can be used for journeying too.

Note: The Barmecides were a family of Persian viziers who served some of the early Umayyad Caliphs, in particular Haroun al-Rashid, and were famed for their generosity.

1/2 c sourdough 3 T olive oil for dough 1 1/2 t (lavender or) cinnamon

3/4 c water 1 lb boned chicken (or lamb) 3 T olive oil

1 1/2 c white flour 10 oz chopped onion 3 T more olive oil for frying

1 1/2 c semolina 1/2 t pepper 1 T (byzantine) murri

(1 t salt in dough) 1 t coriander

Cut the meat fairly fine (approximately 1/4" slices, then cut them up), combine in a 3 quart pot with chopped onion, 1 t salt, spices, murri, and 3 T oil. Cook over a medium low to medium heat about an hour. I covered it at the beginning so it would all get hot, at which point the onion and meat released its juices and I removed the cover and cooked until the liquid was gone. Then heat 3 T oil in a large frying pan on a medium high burner, add the contents of the pot, fry over medium high heat about five minutes.

Stir together flour, semolina, 1 t salt. Gradually stir in 3 T oil.Combine 3/4 c water, 1/2 c sourdough. Stir this into the flour mixture and knead to a smooth dough (which should only take a few minutes). If you do not have sourdough, omit it; since the recipes does not give the dough any time to rise, the sourdough probably does not have a large effect on the consistency of the dough.

Divide the dough in four equal parts. Take two parts, turn them out on a floured board, squeeze and stretch each (or use a rolling pin) until it is at least 12" by 5". Put half the filling on one, put the other on top, squeeze the edges together to seal. Repeat with the other two parts of the dough and the rest of the filling. Bake on a cookie sheet at 350deg. for 40 minutes.

For the fish version, start with 1 1/4 lb of fish (we used salmon). If it is boneless, proceed as above, shortening the cooking time to about 35 minutes; it is not necessary to cut up the fish fine, since it will crumble easily once it is cooked. If your fish has bones, put it on top of the oil, onions, spices etc., cover the pot, and cook for about 10-15 minutes, until the fish is almost ready to fall apart; in effect, it is being steamed by the liquid produced from the onions and by its own liquid. Take out the fish (which should be in the largest pieces that will fit in the pot), bone it, return to the pot, and cook uncovered about 30 minutes until the liquid is mostly gone.Continue as above.

Qutab or Sanbusa

Ain I Akbari no. 20

Qutab, which the people of Hind call sanbusa: This is made in several ways. 10 s. meat; 4 s. fine flour; 2 s. ghee; 1 s. onions; 1/4 s. fresh ginger; 1/2 s. salt; 2 d. pepper and coriander seed; cardamons, cumin seed, cloves, 1 d. of each; 1/4 s. of summaq. This can be cooked in twenty different ways, and gives four full dishes.

To make 1/34th of this, using Brighid's calculations: d=7/340 oz=1/49th oz

10 oz meat

4 oz flour=aprox 1/2 c white + 1/2 c whole wheat

2 oz ghee=aprox 4T (can substitute butter or margarine)

1 oz onion=1/3 to 1/2 c chopped

1/4 oz fresh ginger=1T chopped

1/2 oz salt=2t

1/24 th oz pepper=1/2 t ground

1/24 th oz coriander seed=1/2 t ground

1/49th oz cardamon=1/4 t ground

1/49th oz cumin=1/4 t ground

1/49th oz cloves=1/4 t ground

1/4 oz sumac=2t

The following instructions are loosely based on the Andalusian Sanbû sak recipe.

Mix the flour, cut into it the ghee; continue until it is finely cut in. Sprinkle on about 4-5 T water and knead to a smooth dough.

Cut up meat, combine it and all remaining ingredients in a food processor. Process about 25 seconds, until it is all cut finely together. Roll out the dough to about 12"x16", and cut into 2"x2" pieces. Divide the filling evenly, putting about a 1.5 t of the filling in each (i.e. use up all the filling). Wrap the filling in the dough. It would probably work with fewer squares and larger amounts of filling as well; the related Andalusian recipe specifies a lump of filling the size of a walnut and an equal amount of dough to wrap it with.

Put about 3 c of cooking oil in about a 3 qt pot, heat to between 350deg. and 370deg. , fry the Sanbusas about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes each, drain, serve. Makes about 48

Very good. Rather salty, but not intolerably so. People who do not like salt should probably cut it in half. Almost all of the dishes from this source come out quite salty.

Counterfeit (Vegetarian) Isfî riyâ of Garbanzos

Andalusian p. A-1

Pound some garbanzos, take out the skins and grind them into flour. And take some of the flour and put into a bowl with a bit of sourdough and some egg, and beat with spices until it's all mixed. Fry it as before in thin cakes, and make a sauce for them.

chickpea flour: 1 c

sourdough: 1/2 c

eggs: 4

spices:

2 t pepper

2 t coriander

16 threads saffron

2 t cumin

4t cinnamon

1/4 c Cilantro, chopped

Garlic Sauce:

3 cloves garlic

2 T oil

2T vinegar

Chickpea flour can be made in a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder (a food processor would probably work too). Pound or process until the dried chickpeas are broken, then remove the loose skins and reduce what is left to a powder. An easier approach is to buy the flour in a health food store; a middle eastern grocery store might also have it. Use untoasted chickpea flour if you can get it.

Crush the garlic in a garlic press, conbine with vinegar and oil, beat together.

Combine the flour, sourdough, eggs, spices and beat with a fork to a unform batter. Fry in about 1/4 c oil in a 9" frying pan at medium high temperature until brown on both sides, turning once. Add more oil as necessary. Drain on a paper towel.

note: The ingredients for the sauce are from "A Type of Ahrash [Isfî riyâ ]". What is done with them is pure conjecture.

Zirbaya*

Andalusian p. A-8

Take a young, cleaned hen and put it in a pot with a little salt, pepper, coriander, cinnamon, saffron and sufficient of vinegar and sweet oil, and when the meat is cooked, take peeled, crushed almonds and good white sugar, four ounces of each; dissolve them in rosewater, pour in the pot and let it boil; then leave it on the embers until the fat rises. It is very nutritious and good for all temperaments; this dish is made with hens or pigeons or doves, or with the meat of a young lamb.

1 chicken, 3 1/2 lb 2 T wine vinegar

(or 2+ lb boned lamb)

1 t salt 2 T olive oil

5/8 t pepper 4 oz = 2/3 c almonds

1 1/4 t coriander 1/2 c sugar

2 t cinnamon 4 T rosewater

20 threads saffron

Put cut-up chicken (or lamb), spices, vinegar, and oil into pot. Bring to boil, cook covered over moderate to low heat 30 minutes, stirring periodically to keep the meat from sticking. Blanch and grind almonds, mix with sugar and rosewater to make a paste. Stir this in with the meat, bring back to a boil and cook about 8 minutes until sauce thickens.

Anjudhâ niyyah of Yahya b. Khalid al-Barmaki

Translated by Charles Perry from a 9-10th c. Islamic collection.

Cut meat in strips, chop onion and fresh spices, and throw in a pot. Put in best quality oil, and when the pot boils and the meat browns, add pepper, cumin, caraway and a little murri, and throw in as much milled asafoetida (anjudhâ n) as you need. Break eggs over it and let it cool as needed, God willing.

Note: asafoetida is called Hing in Indian grocery stores.

meat: 1 1/2 lb lamb or beef

a large onion (12 oz)

spices: 1 1/2 t cinnamon, 3/4 t coriander

1/4 c olive oil

1 t pepper

1 t cumin

1/2 t caraway seeds

4 t murri

1/4 t asafoetida (L.G Compounded Asafoetida Powder)

5 eggs

Put sliced meat, onion, cinnamon, coriander, and oil into pot, cook over moderately high heat about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients except for eggs, cook covered over low heat about 20 minutes. Break eggs on top and simmer until eggs are poached, about 5-10 minutes.

Another possible interpretation is to stir the eggs into the hot liquid, in which case the final cooking takes only a minute or two.

Recipe for the Fried Version of the Same [Dusted Eggplant]

Andalusian p. A-51

Take sweet ones and cut, however you wish, lengthwise or crosswise, as mentioned before; boil with water and salt, then take out of the water and leave till dry and the water drains off; then dust[3] in white flour and fry in the pan with fresh oil until brown and add to them a cooked sauce of vinegar, oil, some murri naqî ' and some garlic. You might fry in the same way boiled gourd, following this recipe.

2 lb eggplant or gourd (see p. ???)

6 c water

T salt

1 c flour

8 T oil for frying

4 T vinegar

4 T olive oil for sauce

2 T murri

1 oz garlic

Slice crossways to about 1/4"-1/2" thick. Boil about 4 minutes. Drain in strainer. Flour each slice on both sides. Mash garlic, simmer in vinegar, oil and murri 20 minutes. Meanwhile, heat oil in frying pan at medium high and fry slices about 3 minutes on one side, a little less on the other, until lightly browned on both sides. Drain briefly on paper towel, then put on serving plate, pour sauce over and serve.

Zucchini is a fairly good substitute for the chinese gourd.

Khichri

Ain i Akbari

Khichri: Rice, mung dal, and ghee 5 s. of each; 1/3 s. salt; this gives seven dishes.

Rice: 5 oz=3/4 c

Mung dal: 5 oz=3/4 c

ghee: 5 oz= 8T+

salt: 1/3 oz! = 4/3 t

A modern recipe uses rice, dal, ghee, onions, and spices, and goes roughly as follows:

Soak both rice and dal, separately. Heat some of the ghee, fry onions. Add the daal and some spices and fry 4-5 minutes. Add water (3 c for 1 c dal), simmer until water is absorbed. Add the rice and the rest of the spices, cook about 20-30 minutes until water is absorbed. Heat the remaining ghee in a skillet, fry onions, pour into a small serving bowl. Fluff the Khitchri with a fork,serve with the onions and ghee.

Put the dal and rice in to soak separately, using about 1 c of water each. After 45 minutes, drain the dal. Melt 3 oz of ghee in a sauce pan, add the drained dal, cook about 5 minutes. Add 9/4 c water. Simmer about 1/2 hour. Drain the rice, add it, salt, and another 1 c water. Simmer about 1/2 hour. Melt the remaining ghee, stir in, serve.

Note: The use of the remaining ghee is entirely conjectural, based on the fact that a modern Khichri recipe serves melted ghee on the side (with onion fried in it). The result would not be very different if all the ghee were used initially.

Fresh Beans With Meat, Called Fustuqiyya [4]

Take the flesh of a young sheep or lamb, preferably from the forelegs, the durra, the jaus and the 'anqara [5] and after washing put in the pot with two spoons of fresh oil and water to cover the meat; put on the fire and then take a handful of fresh beans which have been shelled from their pods and throw over the meat; when it is done, take out the meat and knead the beans vigorously with a spoon until none of them is left whole; then pour in the pot a spoon of vinegar, another of fish murri and some salt, however much is enough; then throw the meat in the pot and fry a little; then take it to the embers until its face appears, dish up and use.

1 1/3 lb lamb stew meat 7 oz = 1 1/3 c beans (1 lb 3 oz in pod)

2 T oil 1 T vinegar

1 1/2 c water 1 T murri

Shell beans. Put meat, oil, and water in pot and bring to a boil, then add beans. Simmer uncovered 40 minutes, then remove meat. Mash beans with a spoon, add vinegar and murri, put meat back in and cook over low heat about 5 minutes, making sure it does not stick on the bottom.

Tharda of Zabarbada

Andalusian p. A-42

Take a clean pot and put in it water, two spoons of oil, pepper, cilantro and a pounded onion; put it on the fire and when the spices have boiled, take bread and crumble it, throw it in the pot and stir smoothly while doing so; pour out of the pot onto a platter and knead this into a tharda and pour clarified butter over it, and if you do not have this, use oil.

2 c water

2 T oil

1/4 t pepper

2 T cilantro, chopped

1 medium onion = 4 oz

1 c breadcrumbs

2 T clarified butter (ghee) or oil

Wash and chop cilantro. Slice onion and pound in a mortar (or run through the food processor). Put water, oil, pepper, cilantro, and onion in pot and bring to a boil. Add breadcrumbs, stirring constantly, and heat for 5 minutes, then pour onto platter. Top with oil or ghee; most people preferred ghee.

This is a fairly plain dish, rather like bread stuffing. If you particularly like cilantro, you may want to double it.

Chicken Covered With Walnuts and Saffron

(Andalusian)

Cut chicken in two, put in the pot, throw in onion pounded with cilantro, salt, spices, a spoon of vinegar and half a spoon of murri; fry until it smells good; then cover with water and cook till almost done: make meatballs from the chicken breast, and throw in the pot; dot with egg yolks and cover with the whites and pounded walnuts and saffron; ladle out and sprinkle with pepper and cinnamon and serve, God willing.

Chicken: about 3 lb

Onion: 1 medium, about 6 oz

Cilantro: 2T chopped and pressed down

Salt: 1/2 t

(Pepper: 1/2 t)

(Cumim: 1/2 t)

(Cinnamon: 1 t)

Vinegar: 1 T

Murri: 1/2 T

Water: 2 c

egg yolks: 7

Whites: 7

Walnuts:2 c

Saffron: ~1/32 t ground

pepper: (forgot) should be 1/2 t

cinnamon: (forgot) should be t

Chicken meatballs: 3/4 of raw white meat from the chicken

2 cloves garlic

1/4 t pepper

1/4 t cumin

1/4 t coriander

t murri

Cut chicken in three pieces--the breast (for meatballs) and two symmetrical pieces of what was left. Chopped onion and cilantro, pounded in mortar for a few minutes until onion was limp and transparent (not to a mush, although that might work too). Put 1 T oil in a heavy pot, put on medium heat, put in chicken (minus the breast), added onion, salt, spices, vinegar and murri. Fried for about 10 minutes, then added water, covered the pot, and simmered.

While the chicken cooked, boned the breast, put it in a food processor with and processed about 30 seconds until a smooth paste. Remove that to a bowl and mix with pressed garlic, pepper, cumin, curiander, and murri.

Grind the walnuts in a food processor about 30 seconds until coarser than dust but finer than chopped, add in the egg whites and blend together.

When the chicken has simmered about 40 minutes, spoon in the meatball mixture by teaspoons to make the meatballs. Add the egg yolks, either whole or by spoonfuls. Spread the walnut and eggwhite mixture uniformly over the top. Simmer another ten minutes, sprinkle with pepper and cinnamon and serve.

Came out fine. I forgot the final pepper and cinnamon, but the amounts given above would work.

An alternative interpretation might be that the breast is cooked with the rest in the first stage, then the meat is removed and made into meatballs. But the way I did it worked fine.

Note also that both the spices and the details of the meatballs are not given in the original, and represent my guesses. (DF)

Seafood

Sturgeon pour Porpeys

Two Fifteenth Century p. 105

Take a sturgeon, turbot or porpoise, and cut it in fair pieces to bake; and then make fair cakes of fair paste, and take powder of pepper, powder of ginger, canel, and salt, and medle these powders and salt together; and take and lay a piece of the fish on a cake and lay the powders underneath the fish, and above enough; and then wet the sides of the paste with fair cold water, and close the sides together, and set him in an oven, and bake him enough.

1 lb 1 oz filleted fish 1/2 t ginger

paste: 2 c white flour

1 c whole wheat flour

aprox 1 c water 1 t cinnamon

1/2 t pepper 1/2 T salt

Mix flour together, stir in water, knead to a smooth dough. Divide in 24 portions. Roll out each portion into an oval about 4"x5 1/2". Cut a piece of fish about 1 1/2"x3"x3/8". Mix ginger, cinnamon, and salt. Take 1/8 t of the mixture, put about half of it on one end of the rolled out piece of dough, put on the piece of fish, put the rest of the spice mixture on the fish. Fold over the other half of the dough and seal the edges, using a wet finger if necessary; it should look like a big ravioli.

Put on a baking sheet and bake 20-30 minutes at 325deg. . Eat.

Variants: You can make smaller or larger pasties, as you like; what I describe is simply one way that works. As an alternative to the ravioli shape, you can roll out the dough in a roughly circular shape, put the fish in the middle, pull the dough up around the edges and join it on top--sort of like a sui mai.

Note: Turbot is a delicate flat fish, related to halibut. We were told that Orange Roughy or Taliapo (?) is similar, that it is not fat and does not taste very fishy. Flesh is "white, firm, flaky and savoury. The porpoise (mammal) is said to be oily.

Soups

Poultry

\ recipe{ 28}

ilt du machen ein spise von hü enren

How you want to make a food of hens

Diz heizznt kü neges hü enre. Nim junge gebratene hü enre. hau die an kleine mursel. nim frische eyer und zu slahe die. menge daz zu gestozzen ingeber. und ein wenic enys. giuz daz in einen vesten mö rser. der heiz si. mit dem selben crute. daz tu zu den eyern. damit bewirf die hü enre. und tu die hü enre in den mö rser. und tu dar zu saffran und saltz zu mazzen. und tu sie zu dem viur. und lazze sie backen glich heiz mit ein wenic smaltzes. gib sie gantz hin. daz heizzent kü niges hü enre.}

{ This is called King's Hens. Take young roasted hens. Cut them in small pieces. Take fresh eggs and beat them. Mix thereto pounded ginger and a little anise. Pour that in a strong pot, which will be hot. With the same herbs, which you add to the eggs, sprinkle therewith the hens and put the hens in the pot. And do thereto saffron and salt to mass. And put them to the fire and let them bake (at the) same heat with a little fat. Give them out whole. That is called King's Hens.}

----

3 lb chicken

5 eggs

2 T fresh ginger in eggs,+ 2 t on chicken

3/4 t anise in eggs + 1/4 t on chicken

saffron 12 threads in 1 t water

1 t salt

7 T chicken fat: all the drippings

Put whole chicken in oven at 350deg. , baked 1 hour. Let cool, cut into pieces, partially deboning. Cut ginger up fine and pound with anise in mortar. Take a bowl, beat eggs, add ginger, anise, beat together. Heat a pot on the stove, add egg mixture. Put cut up chicken on the egg mixture. Sprinkle chicken with additional ginger and anise. Crushed saffron into water, sprinkled saffron and salt over pot. Sprinkle chicken fat overall. Put in oven, bake 30 minutes at 350.

Garbage

Two Fifteenth Century

Take faire Garbage, chikenes hedes, ffete, lyvers, And gysers, and wassh hem clene; caste hem into a faire potte, And caste fressh broth of Beef, powder of Peper, Canell, Clowes, Maces, Parcely and Sauge myced small; then take brede, stepe hit in + e same brothe, Drawe hit thorgh a streynour, cast thereto, And lete boyle ynowe; caste there-to pouder ginger, vergeous, salt, And a litull Safferon, And serve hit forthe.

1 lb chicken livers 1/2 c fresh parsley, packed down

1 lb chicken gizzards 1 t fresh sage = 6 medium

10.5 oz can conc. beef broth leaves

+ 1 can water 3 1/2 oz bread = 2 slices homemade

1/8 t pepper 1/4 t ginger

1/2 t cinnamon 3 T verjuice

1/8 t cloves 1/2 t salt

1/4 t mace 10 threads saffron

Cut up gizzards to remove the thin bits of gristle connecting the lumps of meat. Wash and chop parsley and sage. Put broth, meat, herbs, pepper, cinnamon, mace and cloves into a pot and bring to a boil. Simmer uncovered 1 hour 10 minutes. About 15 minutes before it is done simmering, remove about 3/4 cup of the broth and tear up the bread into it; let soak briefly and mash thoroughly with a mortar and pestle. Put back into pot, bring back to a boil and cook, stirring, about 5 minutes, add remaining ingredients and cook a couple of minutes, stirring, and serve.

Meat Dishes

Meat, Cheese and Egg Pies

Desserts, Appetisers, Etc.

Ka'k Stuffed with Sugar

Knead the amount that you want of fine flour and knead a long time. Leave it until it rises and then pound almonds very fine until they are like brains. Grind with an equal amount of white sugar and knead the two parts with some rosewater and perfume it with fine spices. Roll the dough out long and put on the stuffing and cover with dough. Make it round and make ka'ks with it. Send it to the oven and, if you want, fry it in the frying pan with oil and scatter sugar on top. He who wants it simple, let him omit the spices.

Flour: 1 c whole wheat, 1 1/2 c white

Water 1/2 c

Sourdough starter 1/2 c

Almonds 1 1/4 c blanced, making 1 1/2 c ground

Sugar 1 1/2 c

rosewater 3 T

fine spices? 1/2 t cinnamon

Mix the flour, mix the water and sourdough starter and stir the mixed liquid into the flour. Knead it for 10-15 minutes, adding up to an additional 1/4 c flour if necessary to keep it from being sticky. Cover with a damp cloth and leave to rise 5 hours in a warm place.

Grind the almonds about 40 seconds in a food processor (or in a mortar) until very finely ground. Combine with sugar, stir in rose water, and knead together.

Take 1 T of dough, flour it, roll between your hands to a 4" long cylinder. Flatten with your finger, making the middle lower than the edges (i.e. a depression almost 4" long down the middle of the dough). Fill with about 1 1/2 t of the sugar/almond mixture. Fold the dough up over the filling, making a tube of dough filled with filling about 4" long, sealed at both ends. Bend it into a ring (small bracelet). Put on an oiled cookie sheet, bake at .

My guess at the size and shape of the individual pieces is based on a description of something with the same name (but different structure) in a modern cookbook (Claudia Rodin). You can also use 2T of dough, 1T of filling, make a cylinder 6" long. Or experiment with other sizes. You can flatten the ring either by pressing it down against the cookie sheet or by making it like a napking ring. Experiment.

Recipe for Murakkaba, a Dish which is Made in the Region of Constantine and is Called Kutâ miyya*

Andalusian p. A-??

Knead a well-made dough from semolina like the "sponge" dough with yeast, and break in it as many eggs as you can, and knead the dough with them until it is slack. Then set up a frying pan of clay [hantam] on a hot fire, and when it has heated, grease it with clarified butter or oil. Put in a thin flat loaf of the dough and when the bread is done, turn over. Take some of the dough in the hand and smear the surface of the bread with it. Then turn the smeared surface to the pan, changing the lower part with the upper, and smear this side with dough too. Then turn it over in the pan and smear it, and keep smearing it with dough and turning it over in the tajine, and pile it up and raise it until it becomes a great, tall loaf. Then turn it by the edges a few times in the tajine until it is done on the sides, and when it is done, as it is desired, put it in a serving dish and make large holes with a stick, and pour into them melted butter and plenty of honey, so that it covers the bread, and present it.

From "Making of Elegant Isfunja ("Sponge")," Andalusian: You take clear and clean semolina and knead it with lukewarm water and yeast and knead again. When it has risen, turn the dough, knead fine and moisten with water, little by little, so that it becomes like tar after the second kneading, until it becomes leavened or is nearly risen. ...

2 1/4 c Semolina flour 2 eggs 1/2 c butter

1/2 c water 1/4 c more water 3/8 c honey

1/2 c sourdough (for starter) 1-2 T oil for frying

Combine flour, 1/2 c water, and sourdough and knead smooth. Cover with a damp cloth and leave overnight to rise. In the morning knead in an additional 1/4 c water, making it into a sticky mess, and leave another few hours in a warm place to rise. Add the eggs, and stir until they are absorbed into the dough.

Heat a frying pan over a medium to high heat and grease it with oil or ghee (clarified butter). Pour on enough batter to make a thick pancake about 7" in diameter. When one side is cooked (about 2 minutes) turn it over. Put onto the cooked side about 1/4 c more batter, spreading it out to cover. When the second side is done (1-2 minutes more), turn it over, so that the side smeared with batter is now down. Cook another 1-2 minutes. Repeat. Continue until the batter is all used up, giving you about 8-10 layers--like a stack of pancakes about 3" thick, all stuck together. Turn the loaf on its side and roll it around the frying pan like a wheel, in order to be sure the edges are cooked.

Punch 8-10 holes in the top with the handle of a wooden spoon, or make X's with a knife, being careful not to get through the bottom layer. Pour in honey and melted butter, letting it soak into the loaf. Serve.

Scale the recipe up as desired to suit your ambition and frying pan.

Preparation of Musammana [Buttered] Which Is Muwarraqa [Leafy]

Take pure semolina or wheat flour and knead a stiff dough without yeast. Moisten it little by little and don't stop kneading it until it relaxes and is ready and is softened so that you can stretch a piece without severing it. Then put it in a new frying pan on a moderate fire. When the pan has heated, take a piece of the dough and roll it out thin on marble or a board. Smear it with melted clarified butter or fresh butter liquified over water. Then roll it up like a cloth until it becomes like a reed. Then twist it and beat it with your palm until it becomes like a round thin bread, and if you want, fold it over also. Then roll it out and beat it with your palm a second time until it becomes round and thin. Then put it in a heated frying pan after you have greased the frying pan with clarified butter, and whenever the clarified butter dries out, moisten [with butter] little by little, and turn it around until it binds, and then take it away and make more until you finish the amount you need. Then pound them between your palms and toss on butter and boiling honey. When it has cooled, dust it with ground sugar and serve it.

Semolina version

2 c semolina flour 1 T+ sugar

aprox 5/8 c water

1/4 c =1/8 lb = 1/2 stick butter, melted

1/4 c clarified butter. 1/4 c butter, 1/4 c honey at the end (or more)

Stir the water into the flour, knead together, then gradually knead in the rest of the water. Knead for about 5-10 minutes until you have a smooth, elastic and slightly sticky dough that stretches instead of breaking when you pull it a little. Divide in four equal parts. Roll on out on a floured board, or better floured marble, to at least 13"x15". Smear it with about 4 t melted butter. Roll it up. Twist it. Squeeze it together, flatten with your hands to about a 5-6" diameter circle. If you wish, fold that in quarters and flatten again to about a 5-6" circle. Melt about 1 T of clarified butter in a frying pan, and fry the dough about 8 minutes, turning about every 1 1/2 to 2 minutes (shorter times towards the end). Repeat with the other three. Melt 1/4 c butter, heat 1/4 c honey. Beat the cooked circles between your hands to loosen the layers, put in a bowl, pour the honey and butter over them, dust with sugar, and serve. If you are going to give it time to really soak, you might use more butter and honey.

For regular flour, everything is the same except you may need slightly more water. You can substituted cooking oil for the clarified butter (which withstands heat better than plain butter) if necessary.

On Pine Kernels

Platina p. 42

They are often eaten with raisins and are thought to arouse hidden passions; and they have the same virtue when candied in sugar. Noble and rich persons often have this as a first or last course. Sugar is melted, and pine kernels, covered with it, are put into a pan and moulded in the shape of a roll. To make the confection even more magnificent and delightful, it is often covered with thin gold leaf.

Pine nuts 1/2 c = 2 3/4 oz

Sugar 1/2 c

Heat the sugar in a frying pan about 10 min, until it carmelizes to a light brown, stirring continuously. Stir in the pine nuts. Shape roughly into long, thin shapes with a spoon and/or spatula. When it is cool enough to touch but still soft, roll them between your hands to get cylinders. This is a guess at what he means by "the shape of a roll" and could easily be wrong.

Recipe for Mujabbana (Fried Cheese Pie)

Andalusian p. A-61

Know that mujabbana isn't prepared with only one cheese, but of two; that is, of cow's and sheep's milk cheese. Because if you make it with only sheep cheese, it falls apart and the cheese leaves it and it runs. And if you make it with cow's cheese, it binds, and lets the water run and becomd sole mass and the parts don't separate. The principle in making it is that the two cheeses bind together. Use one-fourth part cow's milk and three-quarters of sheep's. Knead all until some binds with its parts another [Huici Miranda observes that this passage is faintly written and only a few letters can be made out] and becomes equal and holds together and doesn't run in the frying pan, but without hardening or congealing. If you need to soften it, soften it with fresh milk, recently milked from the cow. And let the cheese not be very fresh, but strong without...[words missing]...that the moisture has gone out of. Thus do the people of our land make it in the west of al-Andalus, as in Cordoba and Seville and Jerez, and elsewhere in the the land of the West [here written as al-Maghrib].

Manner of Making it

Knead wheat or semolina flour with some yeast into a well-made dough and moisten it with water little by little until it loosens. If you moisten it with fresh milk instead of water it is better, and easy, inasmuch as you make it with your palm. Roll it out and let it not have the consistency of mushahhada, but firmer than that, and lighter than musammana dough. When the leaven begins to enter it, put the frying pan on the fire with a lot of oil, so that it is drenched with what you fry it with. Then wet your hand in water and cut off a piece of the dough. Bury inside it the same amount of rubbed cheese. Squeeze it with your hand, and whatever leaves and drains from the hand, gather it up [? the meaning of this verb eludes me] carefully. Put it in the frying pan while the oil boils. When it has browned, remove it with an iron hook prepared for it and put it in a dipper ["iron hand"] similar to a sieve held above the frying pan, until its oil drips out. Then put it on a big platter and dust it with a lot of sugar and ground cinnamon. There are those who eat it with honey or rose syrup and it is the best you can eat.

4/3 oz cow's cheese: ricotta 1/2 c milk for the dough

4 oz sheep's cheese: feta. 1/2-2/3 c 2 c olive oil for frying (about 1/2 " deep)

( milk--not needed) 1 T sugar

1 1/2 c flour 1 t cinnamon

1/4 c sourdough honey

Mix flour, sourdough, milk and knead for a few minutes into a smooth dough. Roll out to about a 12" circle, making sure the board (or marble slab) is well floured so it will not stick when you later take it off. Let rise about 3 hours in a warm place. Mash together the cheeses and knead them to a smooth consistency. Cut a piece of the dough, put cheese filling on top, fold dough up on all sides around it and over the cheese; squeeze to a circular, flattened patty, using a wet hand so that the dough will seal. At this point you have cheese entirely surroudedby dough. Pour the oil in a 8 1/2" frying pan or dutch oven (about 1/2" deep), heat to about 340deg. . Put patties into the oil, cook until the bottom is brown (about 40-60 seconds), turn over, cook until that side is brown (about another 40 seconds), remove, drain. Eat with either cinnamon sugar or honey.

The cut pieces of rolled dough used to make the fritters ranged from about a 1.5"x1.5" square to a 2.5"x2.5". The former requires about 1/2 t of filling, the latter about 1 t or a little more. The former ends up, before frying, as a roughly circular patty about 1.5" in diameter and 1/2" thick; the latter ends as a circular patty about 2.5" in diameter and 1/2" or a little thicker. The recipe makes about 20-30 patties.

You could probably cook them faster by using enough more oil so that the patties were entirely covered--perhaps 3-4 cups of oil in a pan of the same size we used.

Golden Morsels

Platina book 8

Toast white bread crumbs, soak them in rosewater with beaten eggs and ground sugar. Take them out, fry them in a pan with butter or liquamen (chicken or pork fat), spread out so they do not touch each other. When fried, put in dishes and sprinkle with sugar, rosewater, and saffron.

1 lb sourdough bread about 1/2 stick (1/8 lb) butter

2t rosewater (or more) t more rosewater

10 eggs 16 threads saffron, ground to powder

5 T sugar c more sugar

Beat eggs. Beat in sugar and rosewater. Cut crust off the bread, slice thin, put in egg mixture and let soak. Mix remaining sugar, rosewater, and saffron in small container and set aside. Melt lard in frying pan; when hot enough (test with small piece of bread stuff) put chunks of bread stuff into lard and fry until just browned on both sides. Drain briefly on paper towels, put into dish and sprinkle with sugar and rose water mixture.

Have some slices of white bread pared that does not have crust and make the slices be four (or square), a little toasted so much that every part be colored from the fire. ...

Pynade

Curye on Inglysch p. 79 (Diuersa Servicia no. 91)

For to make a pynade, tak hony and rotys of radich & grynd yt smal in a morter, & do to + at hony a quantite of broun sugur. Tak powder of peper & safroun & almandys, & do al togedere. Boyl hem long & held yt on a wet bord & let yt kele, & messe yt & do yt forth.

1/2 c honey 1/2 t pepper

4 radishes = 2 1/2 oz 10 threads saffron

1/2 c brown sugar 1 c slivered almonds

Cut radish up small, put in the spice grinder (a miniature blender) with 1/4 c honey or in a mortar and grind small. Slightly crush the almonds. Mix all ingredients in a small pot. Simmer, stirring, until candy thermometer reaches between 250deg. and 270deg. . Dump out in spoonfuls onto a greased marble slab or a wet cutting board--the latter works if you have gotten up to 270deg. but sticks at 250deg. . Let it cool.

I got it to 270deg. without serious scorching by stirring continuously near the end. When it cools fully, the 250deg. is firm but chewable, the 270deg. between chewable and crunchy.

\ recipe{ 12}

Ein gute fü lle

A good filling

{ Wiltu machen ein spise. besnide biern sch\ oene und spalt in viere und lege sie in einen hafen und bedecke den hafen und beecleibe ez mit teyge daz der bradem iht uz mü ge. denne bestü rtze den hafen mit einer witen stü rtzen und lege dar umme glü ende koln und laz ez lang sam backen. so nim denne die birn her uz und tu reines honiges dor zu. also vil als der birn ist und siude ez mit ein ander, daz ez dicke werde. und gibz hin. Also mahtu auch von epfeln un von kü ten aber man sol pfeffers genau dar zu tun.}

{ This is how you want to make a food. Trim fine pears and divide in four. And lay them in a pot and cover the pot and coat it with dough, so that the vapor can get out. Then cover the pot with a broad cover and lay there about glowing coals and let it slowly bake. So take then the pears out (of the fire?) and add clean honey therein, as much as the pear is, and boil it together so that it becomes thick and give it out. So you can make also from apples and from quinces but one should add pepper enough thereto.}

----

Pears (or apples or quinces)

Dough from flour and water

honey

Pepper?

4 large Granny Smith apples.

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Dough: 1/2 cup flour, 1/6 cup water, kneaded together.

Peeled and cored the apples, cut in quarters, put then in a dish, sprinkled with pepper. Made the dough. Used it to seal on the lid. Cooked at 350deg. for 43 minutes. Apples on top exploded, no damage. Removed from heat, removed lid.

There was 2 1/2 c of apple; added 2 1/2 c of honey, stirred it together, simmered it for 1/2 hour until it began to thicken a little.

It was very good as a spread, sweet and strong. Pepper was not very noticeable.

Khabî sa  with Pomegranate

Andalusian p. A-24

Take half a ratl of sugar and put it in a metal or earthenware pot and pour in three ratls of juice of sweet table pomegranates [rummâ n sufri; probably tart pomegranates were more common in cooking] and half an û qiya of rosewater, with a penetrating smell. Boil it gently and after two boilings, add half a mudd of semolina and boil it until the semolina is cooked. Throw in the weight of a quarter dirham of ground and sifted saffron, and three û qiyas of almonds. Put it in a dish and sprinkle over it the like of pounded sugar, and make balls [literally, hazelnuts] of this.

(about 1/2 the above would be)

1/2 c sugar = 4 oz

3 c pomegranate juice = 1 1/2 lb

4 t rosewater = 2/3 oz

1.1 c semolina = 1/4 liter = 250 ml (this assumes the small Mudd is what is meant; the alternative is four times as much semolina.)

1 10 t saffron, ground

2 oz whole almonds, blanched

1/4 c sugar = 2 oz

Dissolve sugar in juice and rosewater, bring to a boil, simmer for about 5-10 minutes. Stir in semolina, keep stirring and cooking about ten minutes more, stir in saffron and almonds, stir together. Pour out on a plate, sprinkle with the additional 2 oz of sugar, form into balls, let cool. If you want, sprinkle some of the sugar on after the balls are formed.

Miscellaneous

To Make Onion Juice

Peel your onions, cut them in pieces (8 pieces for a very large onion), put them in a food processor and reduce them to mush (a blender would probably work too). Put the mush through a potato ricer. Put what you get by that process through a clean, wet dish towel. To do that, you pour the onion juice (with some mush that got through the ricer) into the middle of the towel, holding up the edges. When the really liquid part has gone through into the bowl underneath, you pull the edges together so that what is left is a ball of onion mush wrapped in a dish towel. Squeeze until the juice is out. You should get just over a cup of juice per pound of onion.

My guess it that you could omit the ricer stage, but I have not tried it that way yet.