SC - OOP/Long-King Arthur Faire

[Diana L Skaggs]

Quite a while back Katja wrote:

>Okay, could you good cooks on the list give me some input, please? I made
>Byzantine murri (from His Grace's Miscellany) for a Middle Eastern feast two
>years ago and was incredibly unhappy with the result.
>
>It was the *only* time in six years that I've redacted/made a period recipe
>and found the resulting dish completely unpalatable... not just bland, over-
>or under-spiced, or wrong in texture, but absolutely unpleasant and nasty!

As Ras already said, it's not meant to be eaten straight.

>I should note that my murri was *very* liquid - not at all thick or
>pastelike.

Ours is a thick or gloppy liquid, not a paste. Maybe you need to cook 
it down a bit longer?

>The only derivation I made from Duke Sir Cariadoc's printed recipe was the
>use of quince - I could not find fresh quinces in any of the public markets,
>health food stores, or supermarkets in the Rochester, NY area, so I ended up
>using a couple of tablespoons of quince jelly as a substitute. (Yes, I
>already had wheat starch and nigella in my kitchen.)

If I have to substitute for quince I use a cooking apple--I think 
using the related fresh fruit gives you a much closer substitute than 
the jelly would--and as far as I can tell, it comes out pretty 
similar to the way it does with quince. Typically, the places that 
have quince only have it in season, which means fall, while apples 
are available year round.

Next time you make some, try it in the recipe for Tabâhajah from the 
manuscript of Yahya b. Khalid (in the Miscellany--I can post it if 
you can't find it). Everyone I know of who has tried that likes it.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook (about a month behind on the list)