SC - mishmishiya tagine recipe (LONG)

[Ann Sasahara]

Greetings

Here is the al-baghdadi recipe I promised. I recommend buying the book. 

in service,

Ariann
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/7868/
_____________________________
Roden, Claudia, A Book of Middle Eastern Food, 1968, Vintage Books, NY,
453p.   ISBN: 0-394-71948-4

Roden p.246, reproduced for educational purposes:

    " M E A T   S T E W S   W I T H   F R U I T

I have found many Moroccan touajen (the plural form of tagine) incredibly
like al-Baghdadi's medieval stews --  mysterious culinary bond between
ancient Persia and modern Morocco.

Many Moroccans originate from the regions of the Yemen, Iraq, and
Saudi Arabia.  They came there at different times: first in the
pre-Christian era, then with the Arab Islamic invasion in the seventh
century, and then again in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries.  I suspect that the Arabs of the Abbassid period (the time of
al-Baghdadi) brought these dishes with them.  They were then adopted and
perpetuated through the ephemeral Almovarid dynasty, the brilliant
Moroccan period of the dynasty of the Almohads which diffused Moorish
civilization throughout a vast empire, and again during the Sharifian
dynasty of the descendants of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, who came
from Arabia at the end of the fourteenth century.

The same fruits -- apples, prunes, quinces, and currantsand to a
large extent the same spices are used by Moroccans today as were used by
the ancient Persians and the Arabs of the Abbassid period.  Al-Baghdadi's
recipes recommended mashing the fruits to a pulp, but Moroccans leave them
whole or sliced and add them toward the end of cooking, to prevent their
disintegrating.  Fasis (inhabitants of  Fez) stew their ingredients, as
al-Baghdadi did, without preliminary frying, as they consider that frying
would add heaviness to otherwise delicate dishes.

Every Moroccan family prizes its own very special touajen which
generations of their cooks have prepared for them, keeping the recipes
fiercely secret, and I realize that I have been able to include only a few
from a vast culinary treasury.

Modern Persian stews (khoreshtha) have developed them and changed
them a little, remaining true to their own early traditions.  I have
included these in the chapter on rice, as today they are intended as
sauces for rice.

Curiously, countries around the region of Baghdad, now the capital of
Iraq, where al-Baghdadi lived, have not perpetuated this particular
tradition.
__________________
Mishmishya

A splendid meat and apricot dish which derives its name from the Arabic
word for the fruit, mishmish.  Lamb seems to have special affinity for
apricots, and a similar dish was a great favorite in our family.

>From al-Baghdadi's cooking manual
"Cut fat meat small, put into the saucepan with a little salt, and cover
with water.  Boil and remove the scum.  Cut up onions, wash, and throw in
on top of the meat. Add seasonings, coriander, cumin, mastic, cinnamon,
pepper and ginger, well ground.  Take dry apricots, soak in hot water,
then wash and put in a separate saucepan, and boil lightly: take out, wipe
in the hands, and strain through a sieve.  Take sweet almonds, grind fine,
moisten with a little apricot juice and throw in.  Some color with a
trifle of saffron.  Spray the saucepan with a little rose water, wipe its
sides with a clean rag, and leave to settle over the fire: then remove."

S U G G E S T E D   Q U A N T I T I E S

2 lbs.  lean lamb, cubed                  
Black pepper
Salt                                      
1-2 onions, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger  
1/2 lb. dried apricots, soaked and passed through a food mill
1/2-1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2-1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/3 cup ground almonds
1/4 teaspoon pulverized mastic
1/4 teaspoon saffron (optional)
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon                                        1
1 teaspoon rose water

This is one of the dishes on which the meat is not fried before stewing.
It may seem dull at first, but the apricot sauce thickened with the ground
almonds gives it a particular richness which makes frying superfluous.

     The stew requires about 2 hours of gentle cooking, preferably on an
asbestos mat. Leave out the mastic and saffron if you wishI do not think
they are necessary."  


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