Translated by Charles Perry

Recipe for Mirkâ s (Merguez Sausage)

It is as nutritious as meatballs[1] (banâ diq) and quick to digest, since the pounding ripens its and makes it quick to digest, and it is good nutrition. First get some meat from the leg or shoulder of a lamb and pound it until it becomes like meatballs. Knead it in a bowl, mixing in some oil and some murri naqî ', pepper, coriander seed, lavender, and cinnamon. Then add three quarters as much of fat, which should not be pounded, as it would melt while frying, but chopped up with a knife or beaten on a cutting board. Using the instrument made for stuffing, stuff it in the washed gut, tied with thread to make sausages, small or large. Then fry them with some fresh oil, and when it is done and browned, make a sauce of vinegar and oil and use it while hot. Some people make the sauce with the juice of cilantro and mint and some pounded onion. Some cook it in a pot with oil and vinegar, some make it râ hibi with onion and lots of oil until it is fried and browned. It is good whichever of these methods you use.

Recipe for Making Ahrash, Fried Lamb Patties

This is similar in nutrition to mirkâ s and meatballs. Take a piece of tender meat, free of tendons, and pound it fine, as you previously described for mirkâ s. Knead it with some murri...[word or words missing]... of oil, pepper, cinnamon, and coriander seed. The secret of this recipe lies in adding some fine white flour, which i_s holds the mixture together so that it becomes a flat loaf (raghî f). Then put frying pan with oil over a moderate fire and form the loaf into the like of meatballs, and arrange them in the pan so that they all touch, leaving the raghî f until it is done, and turn it over so that it browns on both sides. Then make a sauce with vinegar, oil, garlic, a little murri naqî ', and whoever wants to may add sinâ b [a sauce of mustard and raisins ].

A Type of Ahrash

This is the recipe used by Sayyid Abu al-Hasan and others in Morocco, and they called it isfî riyâ . Take red lamb, pound it vigorously and season it with some murri naqî ', vinegar, oil, pounded garlic, pepper, saffron, cumin, coriander, lavender, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, chopped lard, and meat with all the gristle removed and pounded and divided, and enough egg to envelop the whole. Make small round flatbreads (qursas) out of them about the size of a palm or smaller, and fry them in a pan with a lot of oil until they are browned. Then make for them a sauce of vinegar, oil, and garlic, and leave some of it without any sauce: it is very good.

Meatball Dish

This dish is delicious and nutritious, and similar to the previous recipe. Take red, tender meat, free of tendons, and pound it as in what preceded about meatballs. Put the pounded meat on a platter and add a bit of the juice of a pounded onion, some oil, murri naqî ', pepper, coriander, cumin, and saffron. Add enough egg to envelope the mixture, and knead until it is mixed, and make large meatballs like pieces of meat, then set it aside. Take a clean pot and put in it some oil, vinegar, a little bit of murri, garlic, and whatever quantity of spices is necessary, and put it on the fire. When it boils and you have cooked the meatballs in it, let it stand for a while, and when it has finished cooking, set the container aside on the hearthstone and cover the contents with some beaten egg, saffron, and pepper and let it congeal. You might dye the dish as any variety of tafaya, or any dish you want.

A Recipe of Isfî riyâ

Take some red meat and pound as before. Put it in some water and add some sour dough dissolved with as much egg as the meat will take, and salt, pepper, saffron, cumin, and coriander seed, and knead it all together. Then put a pan with fresh oil on the fire, and when the oil has boiled, add a spoon of isfî riya and pour it in the frying pan carefully so that it forms thin cakes. Then make a sauce for it.

Simple Isfî riyâ

Break however many eggs you like into a big plate and add some sourdough, dissolved with a commensurate number of eggs, and also pepper, coriander, saffron, cumin, and cinnamon. Beat it all together, then put it in a frying pan with oil over a moderate fire and make thin cakes out of it, as before.

Counterfeit (Vegetarian) Isfî riyâ of Garbanzos

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.

Royal Sanhâ ji[2]

Take a large, deep tajine [clay casserole with a lid] and put some red beef in it, cut up without fat, from the leg, the shoulder, and the hip of the cow. Add a very large quantity of oil, vinegar, a little murri naqî ', pepper, saffron, cumin, and garlic. Cook it until it's half done, and then add some red sheep's meat and cook. Then add to this cleaned chickens, cut into pieces; partridges, young pigeons or wild doves, and other small birds, mirkâ s and meatballs. Sprinkle it with split almonds, and salt it to taste. Cover it with a lot of oil, put it in the oven, and leave in until it is done, and take it out. This is simple sanhâ ji, used by the renowned; as for the common people, their sanhâ ji will be dealt with in its own proper time, God willing.

Mirkâ s with Fresh Cheese

Take some meat, carefully pounded as described earlier, add fresh cheese that isn't too soft lest it fall apart, and half a piece of cut-up meat and some egg, for it is what holds it together, and pepper, cloves, and dry coriander. Squeeze on it some mint juice and cilantro juice. Beat it all and use it to stuff the innards, which are tied with thread in the usual way. Then fry it with fresh oil, as aforementioned, and eat it as by nibbling, without sauce, or however you like.

Recipe for the Dish Mentioned by Al-Razi[3]

Gives strength to the sick and those weakened by lengthy disease, and benefits those of a bilious disposition. Take meat of a plump calf shoulder, chest, neck, entrails and stomach and its fat and bone marrow, and put it in a new pot with a little salt, coriander, cumin, pepper, saffron, cinnamon, some onion, a little rue-leaf, celery leaves, and mint and citron and lemon leaves, and oil. Cover it with strong vinegar without water and cook until the meat softens and falls apart; then moisten with its fat a tharid[4] of the crumb of leavened bread, which shall have been made with fine white flour. This is said to be an excellent dish.

The Dish Sinâ bi

Take the meat of a plump sheep and cut it up small. Put it in a clean pot with salt, onion juice, pepper, coriander, a little rue-leaf, oil and a spoonful of strong vinegar; put it on a moderate fire and cook until it is done, then get a little grated heart of leavened white bread, and mix with two eggs and two spoonfuls of well-made prepared mustard [sinab; see below]. Cover the contents of the pot with it and put it on the hearthstone, leaving it until it thickens and the fat rises. It might be covered with blanched, pounded almonds, in place of breadcrumbs.

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