I Have Seen a Couscous Made with Crumbs of the Finest White Bread

For this one you take crumbs and rub with the palm on the platter, as one rubs the soup [hasu; unless this is a scribal error for hashu, " filling" ], and let the bread be neither cold nor very hot; put it in a pierced pot [the colander-like perforated top portion of a couscousiere or couscous steamer] and when it's steam has left, throw it on the platter and rub with fat or moisten with the broth of the meat prepared for it. I have also seen a couscous that one makes from a fat chicken or stuffed and fattened capons and it was as if it were moistened only with fat, and in it were turnips of Toledo and " cow's eyes."

White Tharî da with Onion, called Kâ fû riyya (Camphor-White)

This tharid is made with mutton or with chicken and much clarified butter. Take young fat meat, cut it up and put it in the pot with salt, pepper, coriander seed, oil, mild clarified or fresh butter. When it has fried in its fat and its spices, throw into it some juice of pounded, squeezed onions, about a ratl or more, so that the meat is covered abundantly and finishes cooking; when it is done, break the necessary amount of whole eggs and soak with them a tharid of crumbs of white leavened bread or leavened semolina, and with clarified butter kneaded in it like ka'k (biscotti) dough, and don't beat it much. When the tharida absorbs and is level, put its meat on top of it and serve it. There are those who make it with pounded cut large onions.

Tharî d Mudhakkar[147] with Vinegar and Whole Onions

Take fat beef, cut it in the pot with salt, pepper, coriander seed, saffron, cumin and strong vinegar; when it is almost cooked, add big whole onions without cutting them, cooked separately, and finish cooking it all; when it has finished cooking, take the pot from the fire and moisten with it a tharid crumbled from clean bread kneaded with white flour dough, and when the tharid absorbs it and is level, arrange the meat and the whole onions and serve it. And you might moisten couscous with it.

Tharî da with Lamb and Spinach, Moist Cheese and Butter

This used to be made in Cordoba in the spring by the doctor Abu al-Hasan al-Bunani, God have mercy on him and pardon us and him. Take the meat of a fat lamb, cut it and put it in the pot with salt, onion juice, pepper, coriander seed, [p. 58, recto] caraway and oil; put it to the fire and when it has finished, put in it chopped and washed spinach in sufficient quantity, rubbed moist cheese[148] and butter. When it has finished, take the pot off the fire and moisten with butter. Let there be crumbs of bread moderately leavened, and put your meat on them, and if he (God have mercy on him) lacked lamb meat, he would make a tharida of spinach, moist cheese, butter and the previously mentioned spices and eggs instead of meat.

Tharî da in the Style of the People of Bijaya (Bougie, a city in Algeria) Which They Call the Shâ shiyya of Ibn al-Wadi'.

Take the meat of fat spring lamb, from its flanks, its chest and its fat part; cut it up and put it in a pot with salt, onion, pepper and coriander seed; put it on a moderate fire and when it is almost done, add to it lettuce, spinach, fennel " eyes" and tender turnips. When all is ready, add peeled green fava beans and fresh cilantro; when it is finished cooking, moisten with it the tharid and arrange on it that meat, the vegetables and the beans; put on top of the tharid, on the highest part, a small amount of butter that will pour down the sides among the vegetables. For that reason it has been likened to the shashiyya of Ibn al-Wadi, as if that white butter were the cotton [tassel] of the shashiyya, [149] that falls all over.

Tharid that the People of Ifriqiyya (Tunisia) Call Fatî r

It is one of the best of their dishes. Among them this fatir is made with fat chicken, while others make it with the meat of a fat lamb. Take whatever of the two you have on hand, clean and cut up. Put it in the pot with salt, onion, pepper, coriander seed and oil, and cook it until it is done; then take out the meat from the pot and let the broth remain, and add to it both clarified and fresh butter, and fry [or boil] it. Then fabricate crumbs of a fatî r[150] that have been prepared from well-made layered thin flatbread cooked in the tajine with sourdough, and repeatedly moisten the dish [evidently, the dish in which the crumbs are] until it's right. Then spread on it the meat of that chicken, after frying it in the pan with fresh oil or butter and dot it with egg yolks, olives and chopped almonds; sprinkle it with cinnamon and serve it.

[151]Recipe for Fidaush (Noodles)

This is made from dough and has three types: the long one shaped like wheat grains, the round one like coriander seeds that is called in Bijaya (Bougie) and its region humais [literally, little garbanzos] and the one that is made in thin sheets, as thin as paper and which is food for women; they cook it with gourd, spices and fat; it is one of the qatâ if. Fidaush is cooked like itriyya [see next recipe].

[152][p. 58, verso] Preparation of the Cooking of Itriyya

Take the hind ends of the meat, fat tail, chest, waist and whatever of those parts that may be fat, cut and put in a pot with salt, pepper, coriander seed and oil; put it on a moderate fire and cook it until it is done; then take it from the pot and clarify the sauce, return it to the pot and add fresh or clarified butter or fresh oil; when it has boiled, put in itriyya in a sufficient quantity, boil it and stir it gently and when the water dries up and it is ready, take it off the fire and leave it for a little; empty it into the platter and level it until the fat separates, then take that meat cooked as it is or fried, whichever you want, and arrange it on the platter, pound some of it on the itriyya and sprinkle it with cinnamon and ginger and serve it. You can make rice and noodles according to this recipe.

Preparation of Rice Cooked Over Water [a double boiler method]

Take rice washed with hot water and put it in the pot and throw to it fresh, pure milk fresh from milking; put this pot in a copper kettle that has water up to the halfway point or a little more; arrange the copper kettle on the fire and the pot with the rice and milk well-settled in it so that it doesn't tip and is kept from the fire. Leave it to cook without stirring, and when the milk has dried up, add more of the same kind of milk so that the rice dissolves and is ready; add to it fresh butter and cook the rice with it; when the rice is done and dissolved, take off the pot and rub it with a spoon until it breaks up; then throw it on the platter and level it, dust it with ground sugar, cinnamon and butter and use. With this same recipe one cooks itriyya, fidaush and tharî d al-laban [milk tharid].

Recipe for Milk Tharî d

Take fresh sheep's milk, because you don't prepare this except with sheep's milk still warm from milking, and put it in a clean pot on a moderate fire; stir it gently from time to time, add fresh butter and continue stirring it until it thickens and forms a white foam on top; then add crumbs of thin flatbread made with semolina or wheat flour, of middling sourness, crumbled as fine as possible, and leave it until it is all absorbed and it is finished; then throw it on a platter; make in its center a hollow filled with fresh butter and sprinkle it with a lot of sugar and cinnamon and use it.

Making Muhallabiyya

[p. 59, recto] It is reported that a cook of Persia had his residence next to that of Muhallab b. Abi Safra and that he presented himself to prepare for him a good dish and so that he could test him; he prepared it and offered it to him; he was pleased and called it Muhallabiyya.

Its Recipe

Take four ratls of fat lamb, cut it up and put it in a pot and pour in four û qiyas of oil, two dirhams of salt, a piece of Chinese cinnamon, galingale, chopped onion and a sufficient amount of camphor; cook it until it is almost done; then take from the fire, take out the meat and put it in a receptacle. Take lamb fat and cut it with a knife as you cut vegetables; then take a clean pot and put a strip of fat in the bottom; afterwards put over it another strip of cooked meat and another of thin flatbread cut up and made into tharida and don't stop doing this -- a layer of meat, a layer of fat, a layer of thin flatbread -- until you are finished; then pour on it enough fresh milk to cover the thin flatbread, and add to it enough ground sugar for its sweetness to appear in all. Then take 20 eggs and beat them until they are mixed. Put them in the pot on top of the meat and bread and keep tipping it from side to side and moisten it until all the milk has spread throughout the contents. When the milk appears on top, put it in a hot clay oven (tannur) and cover it, and leave it until it is done. Then take it out and turn it onto a pretty vessel and serve it.

⇐ Предыдущая27282930313233343536Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: