SC - Baharat or bharat and more (was stuffed camel)

[lilinah at grin.net]

>Ras asked:
>>What is Baharat?

After Nanna had sent:
>*baharat - Arab spice blend, can vary very widely. The one recommended in
>the book has 6 tbsps black peppercorns, 3 tbsps coriander seeds, 3 tbsps
>cinnamon or cassia, 3 tbsps cloves, 4 tbsps cumin, 2 tsps cardamom, 3 tbsps
>nutmeg, 6 tbsps paprika - all ground or grated, then mixed well and stored
>in an airtight container.

I sent a *Tunisian* recipe:
>2 Tablespoons dried rosebuds (about 10 buds), stem and calyx removed
>1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
>1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

There's a recipe in "The Complete Middle East Cookbook" by Tess Mallos - a
somewhat encyclopedic work that i've used and seems fairly reliable for
modern ethnic foods - very similar to Nanna's recipe. It is in the section
called The Gulf States (Bharain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab
Emirates, Qatar, and Oman).

(------- begin recipe -------)

Baharat
Makes about 2 cups

1/2 cup black peppercorns
1/4 cup coriander seeds
1/4 cup cassia bark
1/4 cup cloves
1/3 cup cumin seeds
2 teaspoons cardamom seeds
4 whole nutmegs
1/2 cup ground paprika

Place peppercorns, coriander seeds, cassia, cloves, cumin and cardamom
seeds in jar of a blender and grind to a powder. It may be necessary to
combine whole ingredients and grind 1/2 cup of mixture at a time.

Grate nutmeg and blend into spices with ground paprika. Store in an
airtight jar and use as specified.

(------- end recipe -------)

Mallos says you can use the same quantities of ground spices, replacing the
whole nutmegs with 1/4 cup ground nutmeg, but that the total quantity will
be greater than 2 cups.

Mallos uses the spice mix in a vegetarian lentil soup, lamb knuckle soup,
prawn balls, fish curry, stuffed fish, chicken with rice, chicken qurmah,
ground meat kebabs, onions stuffed with ground meat,and quite a few other
recipes. Of course, each recipe uses other spices in differing quantities
as well, so none of them will taste identical.

She also has a recipe for baked lamb which coincidentally is stuffed with a
chicken which is stuffed with boiled eggs and rice and various nuts and
raisins. Gee, this sounds familiar. She also notes that one can use a kid
instead, but she never mentions a camel (probably because it's hard to find
at the supermarket)...

The section also has a recipe for Sabb al-Gafsha which is rather like
Judge's Mouthfuls but adds saffron and cardamom to the dough and lemon
juice and cardamom to the sugar syrup...

Anahita Gawri bint-Karim al-hakim al-Fassi

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