Subject: An Andalusian Feast

From: [email-masked] (Mark Waks)
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 22:45:34 GMT

Y'all may recall that I spent a while asking various questions about
Andalusian cooking. This was while I was doing the research and
experimentation for an SCA event feast; the event was a "Middle
Eastern Miscellany", and the feast was almost entirely out of the 13th
century anonymous Andalusian cookbook, as translated by Charles Perry
and published in the so-called "Cariadoc Cookbook Collection" by David
Friedman. (I chose this source simply because I found it intriguing.)
In the interest of spreading knowledge around, I thought I should
share my reconstructions...

These recipes are taken from the recipe booklet that I put together
for the kitchen staff for the event. It's more-or-less verbatim, and
doesn't reflect some tweaks made on the day of the event. However,
some commentary of what went how well, and some additional discussion
of some recipes, is down at the bottom.

(Note: I don't have the accompanying originals with the recipes.
Sorry; I simply don't have time to type it all in. I recommend getting
the collection from David -- it's easily the most useful single
medieval/renaissance cookbook around...)

				-- Justin du Coeur
				   [email-masked]

----------

A Type of Ahrash
(Lamburgers)
(al-Andalus, pg. A-1)

Pound:

7 lbs. ground lamb

until it is mushy ("like brains").  (This shouldn't take long.)

Add to mushed lamb:

1/2 cup vinegar
3 T chopped garlic
1-2 tsp pepper
a bit of saffron
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves

and mix in thoroughly.  Add:

1/2 - 1 cup oil
7 - 10 eggs

(The original calls for enough egg to "envelop the whole".  The
mixture should stay reasonably cohesive, while getting as moist as
possible.)

Make small, thin patties (the size of the palm or smaller), and fry
them in a lot of oil.  Squash the patties flat while frying.  Brown
them on both sides.

Serve hot, with Ahrash Sauce.

Should make around 140 patties; 2 per person.

Ahrash Sauce

Mix:

8 T chopped garlic
1 cup oil
2 cups vinegar

Boil together.  Whisk a bit, and put out.

(We might consider adding some murri to this sauce; a similar sauce, for the 
second Dusted Eggplant recipe, calls for murri.  It might balance the flavor 
a little.)

----------

Sukkariyya
(Almond Brittle)
(from al-Andalus, pg A-23)

(Note 1: this recipe is considerably different from the version in
Cariadoc's Miscellany.  This is because I believe the Miscellany
recipe is based on a mistranslation -- the Charles Perry translation
differs subtly but importantly in the quantity of almonds used.  The
Miscellany translation calls for 3 ratls of almonds, where the Perry
version calls for 1/3 of a ratl.  This is the difference between
sugared almonds and almond brittle.)

(Note 2: this recipe serves about 5.  We should make 10 to 15 sheets.)

Put:

1 - 2 T almonds

into a small pan.  Fry over a medium fire until the almonds brown;
shake the almonds constantly so that they do not burn.  Crush them
lightly, so that there are still some chunks, with a mortar and
pestle.  Set aside.

Stir in a small, preferably Teflon, pan:

1 T rosewater
3/8 cup sugar

Heat this mixture over high heat, stirring constantly.  The sugar will
dissolve, it will boil, and then it will start to froth.  Toss in the
almonds and stir like mad to mix them in well.  Continue stirring
until it is fully frothy.

Take off heat, and immediately pour onto a heavily buttered marble
board.  Immediately separate from board with a spatula, then set down
again.  Sprinkle with a little sugar, and let cool.  It will quickly
harden into brittle.

----------

A Dish of Fried Chicken
(al-Andalus, pg. A-11)

Bring to a boil:

6 - 8 qts water
2 T salt

When it is boiling, toss in:

72 chicken drumsticks
      (or other pieces, as affordable)
3/4 cup oil
1/2 cup vinegar
8 whole peeled onions
1/2 cup slivered almonds
6 tsp pepper
3 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp cumin
6 tsp ground caraway
6 tsp coriander

Stir together; if water is insufficient, add enough to cover.  Return
to boil, and cook until chicken is done (30-45 minutes).  Remove
chicken from broth, and drain.

Add to the broth:

20 eggs, beaten

(It is not clear how the eggs should be added.  The recipe implies
that you simply beat them in; this result in somewhat lumpy eggs in
the broth.  We might instead try an "eggdrop" -- pour the egg in in a
thin stream, and allow to cook for about ten seconds before stirring.
This would probably be more appetizing, but may be less true to the
original.)

Simmer broth with eggs for a few minutes.  Meanwhile, heat a pan with
some oil, and fry the chicken pieces until brownish.  Serve sauce and
chicken as it is ready.

----------

Mahshi, A Stuffed Dish
(Chicken Casserole)
(al-Andalus, pg. A-9)

Cut up:

15 lbs. chicken

into bite-size chunks.

Mix with:

4 tsp salt
6 onions, somewhat chopped
3 T pepper
2 T coriander
2 T cinnamon
1/2 cup murri
8 cups oil

Cook all together until the chicken is done.  Remove chicken from broth.

Mix broth with:

20 cups bread crumbs
1 tsp saffron
3 T pepper
2 T cinnamon

Once this is mixed, add:

15 eggs

Mix thoroughly.  If this is excessively dry, add a bit more oil.
(However, note that the oil tends to come to the surface and mix while
baking; in most experiments, I had to pour off excess oil while
baking.)  Mix chicken into this stuffing, and lay into pans about 1
1/2 - 2 inches thick.  Cover the surface with barely enough oil to
coat.

Bake at 350 until the oil is all absorbed and the surface is browned
and dry, 30-45 minutes.

----------

Fidaush
(Lamb with Pasta)
(al-Andalus, pg. A-56)

Combine in a pot:

12 lbs. lamb, cut moderately small
1 1/2 T salt
4 T pepper
2 1/2 T coriander
3 cups oil

Cook over moderate heat, until the meat is completely done.  Remove
meat from drippings, cover and set aside.

Boil a big pot of salted water.  

When boiling, put in:

6 lbs. orzo pasta

Cook orzo until al dente (or fully cooked).  Drain.  

Toss the pasta in with the lamb drippings, and stir over a moderate
fire to coat.  If there is not enough drippings, stretch with a stick
or two of butter.

Cook for a few minutes.  Microwave the meat briefly, toss in, and serve.

----------

Barmakiyya
(Chicken Pasties)
(al-Andalus, pg. A-9)

Mix:

10 lbs chicken, cut smallish
3 tsp salt
1 1/2 T pepper
4 onions, chopped
1 1/2 T coriander
1 T cinnamon
1 cup murri
2 cups oil

Cook together until chicken is done, and the sauce dries up.  This is
the filling.

Arastorm's pastry recipe (more or less):

2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup margarine
2 oz. water

Combine, knead heavily, roll out.  One pastry recipe makes enough for
20 or so smallish pasties.

----------

Muzawwara
(Lentils with Cucumber)
(al-Andalus, pg. A-52)

Blanch:

10 cups lentils

in boiling water for a few minutes (enough to clean the lentils,
basically).  Drain, and rinse thoroughly with hot water.  Return to
pot with:

10 cups water

Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the water is mostly
absorbed and the lentils are starting to soften.  Add:

5 cucumbers, cut up
3 1/2 cups vinegar
1 1/2 cup water
4 T coriander
3 tsp cumin
4 T cinnamon

Cover and simmer again, stirring occasionally, until liquid is pretty
much gone and lentils are done.  Remove from heat and let cool; stir
occasionally to facilitate cooling.  Serve cool.

----------

Dusted Eggplant
(al-Andalus, pg. A-51)
(based on Elayne Courtenay's recipe)

Slice fairly thin:

12 eggplants

Toss into boiling water for a minute or two, just long enough to
soften slightly; remove from water and drain thoroughly.

Dip in a batter made of:

1 dox. eggs
2 cups flour
1 T pepper
1 T coriander
1 tsp saffron
1 T murri

Fry on both sides until golden brown.  Dip in batter again; fry again
until brown.  Serve immediately.

----------

Lulabiyya
(I don't remember the source -- it was a different Arabic cookbook)
(from Elayne's recipe)

Combine:

3 packets yeast
1/2 cup warm (not hot) water

Dissolve the yeast.  Add:

10 cups flour

with enough water to make a batter a bit heavier than pancake batter,
but still thin enough to flow.

Heat a deep pan of oil until quite hot (almost smoking).  (Check the
oil by tossing a drop of batter in -- the batter should cook almost
instantly.)  Put the batter into a funnel, and pour steadily into the
oil, making patterns in the oil.  Turn once, remove from oil and
drain.  Dip into:

2 cups honey
1 cup water

Let the excess drip off, and serve warm.

----------

For those who are curious, this was the order of the feast, and the
rough cooking schedule. (Needless to say, the actual cooking schedule
came out rather different...)

Order of the Feast

Preset:
        Bread
        Butter
        Sekanjabin (mint and cinnamon)
        Lemon Drink
        Water

First Course:  (6 pm)
        Lentils w/ Cucumber
        Fried Chicken
        Ahrash (Lamburgers)
        Barmakiyya (Chicken Pasties)

Second Course:  (6:30 pm)
        Dusted Eggplant
        Fidaush (Lamb with Pasta)
        Mahshi (Chicken Casserole)

Dessert:  (8ish)
        Sukkariyya (Almond Brittle)
        Lulabiyya (Funnel Cakes)

Timing
(Some tasks can be done earlier)

Friday:

Buy makings for today's cooking.
Make murri, double batch to be safe.
Make Barmakiyya (pasties).
Make Sukkariyya.
Make sekanjabins, and lemon syrup.

Saturday -- 9 am:

Do rest of shopping.

2 pm:

Make Muzawwara (1 person).

4 pm:

Mush lamb for Ahrash (1 person).
Put up water to boil for Fried Chicken.
Cut up chicken for Mahshi (1 person).
Cut up lamb for Fidaush (1 person).

4:30:

Boil chicken and stuff for Fried Chicken (1 person).
Cook chicken for Mahshi (1 person).

5 pm:

Cook lamb for Fidaush (1 person).
Put up water for Fidaush.
Slice eggplants (1 person).
Put up water for eggplants.

5:15:

Make Mahshi topping (1 person).

5:30:

Mix Ahrash (1 person).
Mix eggs into Fried Chicken broth (1 person).
Boil and drain eggplants (1 person).

5:45:

Put out preset -- bread, butter, and drinks (2 people).
Mix and cook Ahrash Sauce (1 person).
Put Mahshi into oven.

5:50:

Start frying Ahrash (2-3 people).
Start frying Fried Chicken (1 person).

6 pm:

Serve out Muzawwara, Fried Chicken, Ahrash, Barmakiyya.

6:05:

Put orzo into water, and cook (1 person).
Make eggplant batter (1 person).

6:20:

Toss orzo in Fidaush drippings (1 person).
Start frying eggplants (1-3 people).

6:30:

Serve out Mahshi, Fidaush, and Dusted Eggplant.

7:30:

Make Lulabiyya batter (1 person).

7:50:

Start making Lulabiyya (3 people).

8 pm:

Serve out Sukkariyya and Lulabiyya.

----------

Finally, here is a bit of commentary on the feast; it was originally
sent to Steve Bloch and to my apprentices...

The menu was very heavy in fried foods -- this doesn't really exhibit
any tendency save my own tastes. (I have a rule of thumb that I never
cook anything at a feast that I don't like, since if I don't like it
myself, I can't tell whether we've made it right. This sometimes skews
the menus a little. For example, I'm not overfond of stews, so we
didn't have any, despite the fact that they're a fairly prevalent class
of dish in the book.) Everything was from the Manuscrito Anonimo; it
struck me as the most interesting "Middle Eastern" cookbook I found.
(Indeed, it's one of the most interesting cookbooks I've found, period.)

Stuff cooked included:

First course:

Barmakiyya (Chicken Pasties) -- rather good, although the dough I was
using was almost certainly not what was intended. (The recipe calls for
a leavened dough; out of laziness I used my standard pasty dough, which
is unleavened and pastrier.) Took an obscene amount of time to make,
mostly because most of my assistants had never made pasties before, and
were much slower than I was expecting. (I can crank out pasties at 30-40
per hour, given pre-cooked filling. Instead, most of them were doing more
like 10 per hour on average -- I think we spent about 12 man-hours making
somewhere between 100 and 150 pasties.) These came closest to blowing my
schedule out of the water, since they sucked up so much time. I had originally
been planning on making them the day before, and clearly should have done
so.

Ahrash (Lamburgers) -- the second Ahrash recipe from the first page of the
book, as I recall; it used ground lamb (mushed a little more, to be like
brains), spices, oil, and egg. This was the one I'd most worried about;
in the practice run, they came out dry and flavorless. (The practice run
was, by necessity, using beef.) Fortunately, when I used lamb, increased
the spices, and increased the oil and egg for the feast itself, they worked
quite well, and turned out to be a surprise hit -- I got more complements
about the Ahrash than any other single dish. Fairly easy to make, but as
it requires last-minute frying, not suitable for all feasts. Sauce was a
very simple oil/vinegar/garlic mixture; I opted to boil this for a few
minutes, so the garlic could infuse the oil and vinegar. (Another sauce
elsewhere in the book suggests doing just this.)

Muzawwara -- the lentils with cucumber, as we discussed earlier.
Surprisingly popular -- I had expected considerable leftovers (I made
ten cups uncooked lentils for 70 people), but in fact over 3/4 got eaten
in the feast, and the vegetarians took the rest home. I was pleased;
this was the one dish I made that I *don't* care for very much (I'm no
great fan of lentils, but I needed some protein for the vegetarians),
and I'm glad that people liked it.

A Dish of Fried Chicken -- don't remember the page number; this one is
basically taking a bunch of chicken, boiling it with spices in just barely
enough water, removing and frying the chicken, and adding egg to the
broth to make a sauce. Quite straightforward (although, again, requiring
last-minute frying), and a predictable crowd-pleaser. I wound up adding
the eggs in the chinese eggdrop-soup style; I'm skeptical about whether
this is the intent of the recipe, but it comes out with a more palatable
texture than taking the recipe literally. (Although more experiments might
figure out the "right" way to do it.) I used drumsticks, one per person,
both to economize and to make it easier to measure and cook.

And of course bread, rice, and drinks. (For drinks I did mint sekanjabin,
diluted syrup of lemon, and cinnamon sekanjabin (dubiously period, but
very, very good, and always well-liked).)

Second course:

Fidaush -- a rather simple dish. Fry up some lamb with spices, retaining
the drippings. Make some pasta (I chose orzo as being the only easy-to-
obtain commercial pasta that was moderately close to the description in
the book), and toss in the drippings. The original calls for arranging
the lamb around the pasta; for convenience's sake I simply mixed them.
Tasty and easy -- definitely a keeper.

[An additional comment -- I was reading through The Frugal Gourmet's
book on Three Ancient Cuisines the other day, and was rather amused to
come across a dish *very* much like this one, attributed to Greece.
It even specified orzo as the pasta to use...]

Mashi (one of the many Mashi recipes -- I don't remember the page) --
basically a chicken casserole. Fry chicken and spices until the chicken
is done; retain the drippings. Mix the drippings with bread crumbs to
make a sort of stuffing, then set that and the chicken into a pan and
bake. I suspect that the original intends rather more stuffing than I
came out with, since it implies that the chicken should be fully buried
under the surface of the stuffing (which I didn't manage). The tricky
part with this one is getting the oil right. All of my practice runs
had too much oil, and I had to pour some off. The final version didn't
have quite enough, and was a shade dry; people still liked it, but it
wasn't quite as I intended. Further experiments are warranted.

Dusted Eggplant (the batter-dipped version) -- I tried the flour-
dredged version in practice, and decided I didn't like it much, so I
made the batter-dipped one, using Elayne Courtenay's reconstruction
from last year, more or less. Essentially, it's eggplant fritters.
Oddly, the batter on the day of the feast came out much thicker than
in the practice run, so we only single-dipped them. (I believe that
the original intends that you dip, fry, dip again, and fry again, to
get a thick layer of batter on the eggplant.) Didn't quite get finished
(the modern American palate simply isn't that into eggplant), but most
of it got eaten, and those who *do* like eggplant liked it.

Dessert:

Sukkariyya -- the same recipe as Cariadoc's in the Miscellany, but a *very*
different reconstruction. Cariadoc uses the old translation, which calls 
for one ratl of sugar to three ratls almonds -- he gets sugared almonds
out of this. I used the Charles Perry translation, which differs in one
key aspect -- he has it as one *third* of a ratl of almonds. This, to my
mind, probably means almond brittle.

It took some work to get the hang of the almond brittle -- I needed four
experiments initially to get it to work, and to figure out a surface that
wouldn't stick. Even then, the first two batches made for the feast didn't
work -- the first wasn't cooked quite enough (the sugar crystals were
still intact -- the taste wasn't bad, but the texture wasn't great), and
the second turned into caramel (tasty, but gooey and hard to eat). On the
third, I finally got the timing right -- you toss the almonds in when the
sugar starts to turn slightly brown, stir like mad until it turns a little
more brown, and turn it out. The result is a magnificent, tasty almond
brittle.

It took a good while to make it -- one batch only makes enough for about
six people, and each batch takes 10-15 minutes, so I spent several hours
making it. Fortunately, it keeps a few days, so I was able to make half of
it the day before. (You might be able to enlarge the batches, but you would
need a larger marble to pour it onto than I had.)

Lulabiyya -- this one isn't actually from al-Andalus; I used Elayne's
reconstruction from last year, which is based on one of the Arabic sources
I don't have (I think of it as "the one that isn't the Manuscrito Anonimo
or al-Baghdadi"). It's almost exactly modern funnel cakes, except a)
the batter is just flour and water (no egg), and b) instead of being
dusted with sugar, it's dipped in honey instead. (You have to dilute
the honey a little (2 parts honey to 1 of water) to get it to work, but
it's actually even tastier than modern funnel cakes.) Always a crowd-
pleaser, and one of my favorite desserts.

All in all, a reasonably successful feast. Although the kitchen almost
broke down into chaos a few times (I ten people working there for a fair
while), nothing went seriously askew, and all of the dishes were well-
received. I take it as a compliment that no one went away hungry, but
the only food I had to throw out was about a dozen eggplant fritters --
people took home all the rest of the leftovers. Probably my best feast
to date...

---

From: [email-masked] (Michael Johnston -- Michael's Music Service)
Date: 30 Sep 1993 01:35:36 GMT

That feast menu was amazing.  It's all new to me, that whole menu.
I shall study and maybe attempt a couple of them.  Thanks for the 
excellent post.

Cheers!
Michael
-- 
MICHAEL'S MUSIC SERVICE | CIS: 70731,3403 |---------| Barony of the Sacred Stone
4146 Sheridan Drive     | [email-masked] |----------------| John Apple
Charlotte, NC 28205-5654|(704) 567-1066 (800) 438-4129 |------| Michael Johnston
-- Brother Ambrose, Friars Minor |-------| Guillaume de Pomme, Maitre d'Orgue --

---

From: [email-masked] (David Friedman)
Date: 3 Oct 1993 04:41:16 GMT

A Type of Ahrash

This is the recipe used by Sayyid Abu al-Hasan and others in Morocco, and
they called it isf”riy‰. Take red lamb, pound it vigorously and season it
with some murri naq”', 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.

> Ahrash Sauce

Then make a sauce with vinegar, oil, garlic, a little murri naq”', and
whoever wants to may add sin‰b [a sauce of mustard and raisins ].
(I assume that is the one you were thinking of)

> sugared almonds and almond brittle.)

Correct--I have altered my recipe to fit the corrected translation, and it
will be in the next edition of the Miscellany--which will not be for a
while.

Sukkariyya, a Sugar Dish from the Dictation of Abu 'Ali al-Bagdadi

Take a ratl of sugar and put in two žqiyas of rosewater and boil it in a
ceramic pot until it is on the point of thickening and sticks between the
fingers. Then take a third of a ratl of split almonds, fried, not burnt,
and pound well and throw the sugar on them and stir it on the fire until
thickened. Then spread it out on a dish and sprinkle it with ground sugar.

A Dish of Fried Chicken

Leave a plump hen overnight in its feathers, then clean it well, put it in
a pot and pour in a good deal of both water and salt, two spoonfuls of oil,
half a spoonful of vinegar, a whole onion, fennel stalks, citron leaves,
cleaned almonds, pepper, cinnamon, a little cumin, caraway, and coriander,
well ground. Then put it on a moderate fire and when the hen is cooked,
take it out and fry it with fresh oil until it is browned, and take it out
of the frying pan. Take the sauce in which the hen boiled and beat it well
in a dish with six or eight eggs. Separate four whole eggyolks and pour all
this into a frying pan until it is rippled and well browned. Then put the
chicken in a dish covered with citron leaves and put this filling around it
and over it, garnish it with the eggyolks after they too are fried and
sprinkled with spices.

> (al-Andalus, pg. A-9)

Mahshi, a Stuffed Dish

It is made with a roast hen, or with young pigeons or doves, or small
birds, or with the meat of a young lamb. Take what you have of this, clean
it, cut it up and put it in a pot with salt, a piece of onion, pepper,
coriander, cinnamon, saffron, some murri naq”' and plenty of oil. Put this
on the fire and when it is done and the broth has formed, take out the meat
from the pot and leave it aside. Take as much as necessary of grated white
breadcrumbs and stir them in a tajine with the remaining chicken fat and
sauce. Tint it with plenty of saffron and add lavender, pepper and
cinnamon. When the breadcrumbs have come apart, break over it enough eggs
to cover [ÒfloodÓ] it all and sprinkle it with peeled, split almonds. Beat
all this until it is mixed, then bury the pieces of chicken in this so that
the chicken is hidden in the stuffing and whole eggyolks, and cover this
with plenty of oil. Then place in the oven and leave it until it is dry,
thickened and browned and the top of the tajine is bound. Then take it out
and leave it until its heat passes and it cools, and use it.

> (al-Andalus, pg. A-56)

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 qat‰if. Fidaush
is cooked like itriyya [see next recipe].

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.

> (al-Andalus, pg. A-9)

Recipe for Barmakiyya

It is made with a hen, pigeons, doves, small birds or lamb. Take what you
have of them, after cleaning, and cut up and put in a pot with salt, an
onion, pepper, coriander and lavender or cinnamon, some murri naq”', and
oil. Put it on a gentle fire until it is nearly done and the sauce is
dried. Take it out and fry it in fresh oil without overdoing it, and leave
it aside. Then take fine flour and semolina, make a well-made dough with
leaven, and if it has some oil it will be more flavorful. Then roll out
from it a flatbread and put inside it the fried and cooked meat of these
birds, cover it with another flatbread and stick the ends together. Put it
in the oven, and when the bread is done, take it out. It is very good on
journeys. You might make it with fish and that can be used for journeying
too.

[Note that, unlike your pastry recipe, this does not require any fat--the
oil is an option. The way I do it tastes more like a bread than a pastry.
My recipe is]

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 350¡ for 40
minutes.

> (al-Andalus, pg. A-52)

A Muzawwara (Vegetarian Dish) Beneficial for Tertian Fevers and Acute
Fevers

Take boiled peeled lentils and wash in hot water several times; put in the
pot and add water without covering them; cook and then throw in pieces of
gourd, or the stems [ribs] of Swiss chard, or of lettuce and its tender
sprigs, or the flesh of cucumber or melon, and vinegar, coriander seed, a
little cumin, Chinese cinnamon, saffron and two žqiyas of fresh oil;
balance with a little salt and cook. Taste, and if its flavor is pleasingly
balanced between sweet and sour, [good;] and if not, reinforce until it is
equalized, according to taste, and leave it to lose its heat until it is
cold and then serve.

> (based on Elayne Courtenay's recipe)

Recipe for Dusted Eggplants 

Take sweet ones and split in strips crosswise or lengthwise and boil
gently. Then take out of the water and leave to drain and dry a little.
Then take white flour and beat with egg, pepper, coriander, saffron and a
little murri naq”'; when it is like thick soup, put those eggplants in it
and fry with oil in the hot pan; then brown them, then immerse them and do
a second time and [p. 53, verso] a third.

> 1/2 cup warm (not hot) water

Charles Perry believes that all of the raised doughs are sourdoughs, not
yeast doughs. You write "I think of it as "the one that isn't the
Manuscrito Anonimo
> or al-Baghdadi" which probably means Ibn al Mubarad.

Sounds like a great feast; wish I had been there.

David Friedman
-- 
[email-masked]