SC - Badinjan Muhassa
lilinah at earthlink.net
lilinah at earthlink.net
Sun Feb 27 00:36:14 PST 2000
In the "Best Food for War" thread, Lord Cariadoc said:
"Badinjan Muhassa is a yummy period dip."
I asked if this was in the Miscellany on line. I never heard back,
but it could easily have gotten lost in the Trimaris turmoil. So here
it is, from the Miscellany
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/islamic_w_veggies.html#3
If you haven't explored Lord Cariadoc's on-line Miscellany, i highly
recommend it. I've redacted some of the recipes myself. It's so nice
to have the original, and to see how an experienced cook does it, but
i'm pig-headed (odd for a Muslim persona) and redact them my way.
I have a question for Lord Cariadoc: I've had some experience with
purchased eggplant dips fermenting. Does this keep well? I do bring a
cooler to events, but i know you usually don't. Or do you cook it on
the spot and have it eaten almost immediately so you've no experience
of how long it keeps?
Anahita al-shazhiyya
- -----
Badinjan Muhassa
Ibn al-Mahdi's cookbook in 10th c. collection, Charles Perry tr.
Cook eggplants until soft by baking, boiling or grilling over the
fire, leaving them whole. When they are cool, remove the loose skin,
drain the bitter liquor and chop the flesh fine. It should be coarser
than a true purée. Grind walnuts fine and make into a dough with
vinegar and salt. Form into a patty and fry on both sides until the
taste of raw walnut is gone; the vinegar is to delay scorching of the
nuts. Mix the cooked walnuts into the chopped eggplant and season to
taste with vinegar and ground caraway seed, salt and pepper. Serve
with a topping of chopped raw or fried onion.
3/4 lb eggplant
1 c walnuts
2 T vinegar (for nut dough)
1/2 t salt (for nut dough)
1/8 t each pepper and salt
1 t caraway seed
1 1/2 T vinegar (at the end)
1/4 c chopped raw onion
Simmer the eggplant 20 to 30 minutes in salted water (1/2 t salt in a
pint of water). Let it cool. Peel it. Slice it and let the slices sit
on a colander or a cloth for an hour or so, to let out the bitter
juice.
Grind the walnuts, add vinegar and salt to make a dough. Make patties
about 1/2" thick and put them on a frying pan at medium to medium
high heat, without oil. In about half a minute, when the bottom side
has browned a little, turn the patty over and use your pancake turner
to squash it down to about 1/4" (the cooked side is less likely to
stick to your implement than the uncooked side). Continue cooking,
turning whenever the patty seems about to scorch. When you are done,
the surface of the patty will be crisp, brown to black-and since it
is thin, the patty is mostly surface. If the patties start giving up
lots of walnut oil (it is obvious-they will quickly be swimming in
the stuff) the pan is too hot; throw them out, turn down the heat and
make some more.
Chop up the eggplant, mix in the nut patties (they will break up in
the process), add pepper, salt, caraway (ground in a spice grinder or
mortar and pestle), and vinegar. Top with onion. Eat by itself or on
bread.
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