Recipe for Rice Dissolved With Sugar

Wash what you want of the rice and cook it as usual. Then take it to the hearthstone and leave it a while and when it is ready and has become mushy, mash it with a spoon until it dissolves and not a trace of the grain remains. Then feed it ground white Egyptian sugar and stir it vigorously. Add sugar bit by bit until its sweetness dominates and it becomes like dissolved fanid [taffy, to judge by the recipe given for it in this book]. Then turn it onto a platter and make a hole in the center that you fill with fresh butter, or with oil of fresh sweet almonds. If you cook this with fresh milk instead of water, it will be more delicious and better.

Information about Harî sa According to its Kinds

Harisa is heating, moist, very nutritious, strengthening and fertilizing for dry, thin bodies. It increases blood and sperm, with increased ability in coitus, but makes digestion and good bowel elimination difficult. If one can digest it well, it is beneficial for the person who wishes to strengthen and make good use of his body after...[words missing]... free of fever and intestinal heaviness. It is good for the thin and those with strong stomachs, especially if they are mild and easy tempered and do not have severe constipation, because mildness and compliance hasten bowel elimination and its effect on fat delays its growth. [Last few words obscure; in the MS a marginal notation reads sic.] It is indicated for emptying the stomach. What is needed for its digestion is to take with it some murri naqî ' and ground Chinese cinnamon. If you eat it alone don't mix it with another food, it is more nutritious and easier to digest, and more quick in digestion. It is the custom of the people and they have agreed on eating harî sa made with dough fried in oil. This adds to its heaviness and slowness to digest and leads to constipation, because all the foods that one fries with dough in fat are constipating and are harmful to the liver. Because of this, the zulâ biyya, which is isfunj (the sponge), is the worst that can be eaten and will be its equal. The slowness in digesting it produces a sulfurousness of the kidneys and the harm that it does is more than its benefits. Since one uses wheat and fat in rafî s, in the same way with harisa. With its meat and fat, there is no need [p. 61, recto] for other wheat, but harisa eaten alone is more beneficial and gives more rapid digestion with less harm in all situations.
Among the kinds of harisa that there are, there is one that is made with fat veal or with three-year-old sheep or with breasts or legs of geese and meat from chicken breasts and legs. All these have a flavor and taste that is not like the others and have a virtue that the others do not have. The conditions of harisa are that they be delicious to the palate and have little salt, like the different kinds of rafî 's [NB: not rafî s, a different word meaning exquisite] because no salt appears in it. There are those who prefer the harisa with a lot of meat and those who want a moderate amount. The easiest to eat, the most easily evacuated from the body, is that which has two thirds of wheat and one of meat.

The Method of Making It

Take good wheat and soak it in water. Then pound it in a wooden or stone mortar until it is free from husks. Then shake it and put the clean wheat [its marrow] in a pot with clean red meat and cover it with a lot of fresh water. Put it on a strong fire until it falls apart. Then stir it with the rikshâ b[159] very forcefully until it becomes blended and one part shades into the other. Then pour on enough melted fresh fat to cover it and beat them together until they are mixed. When it seems that the fat begins to separate and remain on top, turn it onto a platter and recover it with salted fat; dust it with ground cinnamon and use it as you please.

Rice Harî sa

Wash the needed amount of rice and let it sit for a day in enough water to cover it. Then put it in a pot and add what you want of the meat from chicken breasts or fresh mutton; cover it in water and cook it. When it falls apart, stir it vigorously until it is thoroughly mixed up. Put it on a platter and pour on melted fat from a sheep, dust it with cinnamon and use it. You might make this harisa in the oven. For that you cover it with a lot of water and fit the pot cover with a hinge and let it spend the night in the oven. Then take it out, pound it and use it with sheep fat.

Recipe for Harî sa Made with White Bread Crumbs Instead of Wheat

Take crumbs of white bread or of samid and grate them until they become grits the size of wheat or a little larger. Spread them in the sun until they dry out and take them up and set apart until needed. Then take the meat from the legs or shoulder blades of a sheep, because you don't make harisa without sheep meat and fat. [p. 61, verso] Put it in a pot with a lot of water. Cook it until the meat falls apart and you put in a fork [hook? ] and it disperses. Then add the needed amount of already mentioned prepared crumbs and let it sit a while until it becomes mushy. Stir it until it is mixed and becomes one mass. Use it with melted sheep fat, dust it with cinnamon, as has been said.

Recipe for Tharî d Shabâ t

You make shabâ t with white flour kneaded with sourdough and you cook it over the hot ashes at home or in the tannur oven over a gentle fire, without overdoing the cooking. Then take a fat chicken and boil it; stuff it with its innards and pounded meat, beaten egg, pepper, coriander, onion and oil. Add meatballs and cook it until it is done. Break eggs in it and estimate the amount of sauce that the shabat will soak up. Then pour the sauce over it and decorate it with the meatballs. Dot it with egg yolks; put the stuffed chicken on top, and pour melted butter over it, removing the froth, and serve it. With wheat, you can make whatever dishes you want and might find delicious, dishes that everyone will relish, especially in winter and on cold days.

Royal Jashî sha (Grits) Which Provides Wholesome Nutrition

Take heavy wheat; clean it and grind it in the mill by hand so that it comes out as grits. Then shake off the bran. Take out a quantity of wheat and put it in an earthenware pot. Add water to cover it and cook it. When the water diminishes, return [marginal notation: and stir] with fresh milk, time after time, and when it is done, adjust the flavor with a little salt[160] and pour on it cooked chicken fat, and add more fat, and let it [the jashisha] be delicate, of the consistency of what can be sipped. Then sip it and it will be good.

Good Jashî sha: It Fattens Thin Women and Men

Take crushed wheat and an equal amount of rice, and garbanzos and hulled and washed spices, a handful of each, and put it in a pot. Cover it with water and cook until it is completely done. Adjust it with a little salt so that it is delicate like hasa' [soup], [161] then pour on fresh butter and melted kidney fat and the broth of young, fat meat. Then sip it, because it increases one's strength greatly.

'Asî da Which Fortifies and Nourishes Much and Fattens

Take two ratls of clarified honey, cleaned of its scum. Add oil and fresh clarified butter, a quarter ratl of each, and put it on a gentle fire. When it has boiled, put in the heart [p. 62, recto] of pure leavened bread, grated, as much as is needed, and peeled and pounded almonds, and the yolks of ten eggs. Stir it and do not neglect stirring it until the oil disperses and it melts and thickens. Then take it from the fire and leave it to cool and use it like 'asida, after dusting it with ground sugar and whatever you like of the different kinds of fats.

'Asî da Made with Grits that Nourishes and Fattens

Take the mentioned cracked wheat and pour water on to cover it. Cook it until the water dries up and then moisten it with fresh milk and stir until done. Then add skimmed honey and grease from meat cooked with its fat. Repeat this several times until it is " balanced." Then add fresh butter and ground sugar, fanid (pulled taffy) and ground cinnamon. Serve it and it is a good dish.

[162]Mention of the Varieties of Rafî s and Dishes of Bread and Sweets and the Sort

[163]Recipe for Making Jû dhâ ba, Called Umm Al-Faraj: It is an Eastern Dish

Get kidney fat from a sheep or a fat goat and clean it of its membranes and veins. Pound it in a stone or wood mortar until it takes the consistency of brains. Then take a new pot; knead the fat with your hand and smear it over the whole inside of the pot, from the bottom up the sides so that it has the thickness of a finger.
Then take thin bread made on the mirror in whole pieces without falling apart. Its preparation consists in kneading wheat dough well according to the recipe of mushahhada [literally, made like honeycomb], so that its ghurâ b [literally raven or occiput -- not a common culinary term, because the MS has a " sic" in the margin; anyway, the meaning is clearly to keep the dough from becoming too stiff] doesn't form into a ball. Dilute it with water little by little until it becomes as thin as hasu. Heat the Indian mirror on a moderate charcoal fire, and when it has heated, take for the dough bowl a " moistener" (muballila) and pour [batter] on it [the mirror] with a cup until it swims.[164] Return the dough [the excess that doesn't stick to the mirror] to the bowl, and it has attached to the mirror as a fine tissue. That is a ruqâ q, and it is [also] kunafa. Shake out onto a kerchief, and it will come out round, in the shape of the mirror. Then pour the dough, as was done the first time, until you collect the necessary amount.
Then take fat, tender chickens, clean them, cut their breasts and put them into the pot, whole, as they are; add salt, oil, pepper, cinnamon and spikenard. Put it on the fire and cook it until done. When the juice has dried up, take [p. 62, verso] two ruqâ qs (thin breads) and put them in the bottom of the earthenware pot which has been prepared and smeared with grease. Stick them to the sides and dust the thin bread with crushed sugar, peeled almonds, spikenard, Chinese cinnamon and cloves, a handful [in all].. Dribble on a good amount of fresh oil and sprinkle it all with rose water in which some musk and camphor have been dissolved, enough to dampen the sugar. Then lay over this two thin breads and dust them, as was done earlier, with sugar, almonds, spices and oil. Sprinkle with rose water. Then lay on another thin bread and do the same with it until you reach the middle of the pot.
Then take those cooked and prepared chickens, which have been rubbed with saffron dissolved in rose water, and lay them in the center of the pot over the bread. Then cover with a thin bread also, and dust with sugar, almonds and flavorings as was done before. Don't stop doing this until the pot is full and the chicken remains buried in the middle. When you have finished, dust it with a lot of sugar, throw on oil and rose water and cover with the bread fastened to the sides. Cover the pot with a fitted lid, sealed with dough. Then put it in the oven at moderate heat and leave it there as long as you would leave a pot with meat [viz. a stew].
Then take it out and break the seal. It gives off a perfumed odor. Remove the thin bread that covered it, if the fire has gotten it, and also that which has been stuck to the sides of the pot. Then invert it, such as it is, on a big platter and serve it. It is extremely good tasting with a penetrating aroma. It is an extraordinary dish, superior in its preparation to the royal victuals, praised for its nutrition and beautiful composition.

Recipe for Simple Jû dhâ ba

Take equal parts of almonds and sugar. Chop them and add spikenard, cinnamon, cloves, galingale, and some saffron, all ground. Then take a new pot and smear the bottom and sides with fresh, melted grease, as done earlier on. Then lay in the bottom of the pot some layered kunafa and make them stand up the sides of the pot. Then dust it with a spoon of this sugar, almonds and spices. Sprinkle it with some rose water in which some camphor has been dissolved. Then put thin bread on top of it and sprinkle it with another spoon, then a thin bread and a spoonful, until a quarter or less of the pot remains. Break over it each time [p. 63, recto] enough eggs. Then cover with the oil until it rises above it. Then cover it with bread and arrange the pot with dough. Put it in the oven at moderate heat, leaving it until it is finished. Pour it onto a big platter and use it. When it is on the platter, moisten with some rose and julep syrup. In any case, it will be good and delicious.

Jû dhâ ba Beneficial for the Cold and It Strengthens Coitus

Take walnut kernels and hulled almonds, hazelnuts, kernels of pine nuts and pistachios, a quarter of a ratl of each. Grind them in a wooden or stone mortar until it is like fine flour.[165] Add two-thirds of a ratl of bread crumbs made from semolina and two ratls of ground meat from the shoulder of a sheep, cleaned of its tendons. Break in fifteen eggs and beat it all together. Add ginger, galingale, pepper, cloves and Chinese cinnamon, one part of each; a dirham of mastic and of saffron, of each one half a dirham and of oil a good half û qiya. Put it all in a new pot and throw in a ratl and a half of fresh milk. Lower it into the tannur (clay oven). Seal it and leave it until it is done, binds together, and is ready. Take it out, scatter ground sugar on it and serve it.

Preparation of Kunâ fa

Take some of this thin bread, as was mentioned before how to do it. Cut it and trim it to the size of big rose leaves. Then take a pot and a tinjir [boiling kettle], in which [viz. the kettle] you put fresh oil, enough to cover the cut bread. Let it boil until it absorbs the oil and disappears. Then throw in clean honey, free of its froth, to cover it, and sprinkle it with rose water in which some camphor has been dissolved. Stir it gently so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the tinjir. Then dust it with ground sugar, stir it and when it has become thick, take it off the fire, stir it and dust it with spikenard, cloves, ground sugar, chopped peeled almonds and whole fanid [taffy]. Smooth it with a spoon while it boils and the oil disappears, as you do with mu'assal. The people of Bijaya [Bougie] and Ifriqiyya [Tunisia] make this kunafa with fresh and clarified butter instead of oil, but oil is better and lasts better.[166]

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 [p. 63, verso] 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[167] and toss on butter and boiling honey. When it has cooled, dust it with ground sugar and serve it.

Recipe for Shabâ t with Fat

Make a dough of sifted semolina with a moderate amount of leaven. Moisten it with melted grease freshened with oil. Stir well until the dough absorbs it and moisten it with it again and again until it has absorbed all it can of the grease. Leave it for a while. Then form it into thin flatbreads, or if you want, into muwarraqa. Fry them in the frying pan with melted grease to cover them, until they are done. Then take them out and eat them with honey.

Recipe for Honeyed Rice

Take rice and soak it in fresh water, enough to cover it, for a day or overnight. Then wash it and put it on the fire in a pot or kettle (tinjir). Cook it with water or fresh milk, then add four or five ratls of clean honey from which you have skimmed the foam. Cook it carefully on a gentle fire. Moisten it, while cooking, with fresh milk until it sticks together, coagulates and becomes a paste. Pour it onto a platter and macerate it with a spoon. Make a hole in the center which you fill with fresh, melted butter and dust it with ground sugar and cinnamon and use it.

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