[Sca-cooks] Pt. 1 - Medieval Persian Iron Chef

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I notice that my message about my Medieval Near Eastern, mostly
Persian, feast sank like a stone among the messages about turkey and
stuffing/dressing, but i will persist and post my recipes anyway, for
posterity or something.

Here are three out of nine, for the "bawarid", the cold dishes:
Zaitun Mubakhkhar - Smoked Olives
Sals Abyad - White Sauce
Badhinjan Buran - Princess Buran's Eggplant

Anahita

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Zaitun Mubakhkhar - Perfumed Olives
The original calls for smoking the olives. As I don't have the
necessary equipment, I added a few drops of smoke flavor to the
drained olives.

Original:
Take olives when fully ripe. If you want take them black, and if you
want take them green, except that the green are better for smoking.
Bruise them and put some salt on them, as much as needed, and turn
them over every day until the bitterness goes away. When they throw
off liquid, pour it off. When the bitterness is gone from them,
spread them out on a woven tray until quite dry.

Then pound peeled garlic and cleaned thyme, as much as necessary.
Take the quantity of a dirham of them, and a piece of walnut with its
meat in it, and a dirham of wax, and a piece of cotton immersed in
sesame oil, and a piece fo date seed. Put these ingredients on a low
fire on a stove [kanun] and seal its door, and put the tray the
olives are in on top of it, and cover it with a tray so that it is
filled with the scent of this smoke, which does not escape. Then
leave it that way for a whole day.

Then you return them to a container large enough for them and mix the
pounded garlic and thyme with them, and a little crushed walnut meat,
and a handful of toasted sesame seeds. Take as much fresh sesame oil
as needed and fry it with cumin seeds, and throw them on it and mix
them with it.

Then take a greased pottery jug [barniyya] and smoke it in that
smoke. Put the olives in it and cover the top, and it is put up for
[several] days. It is not used until the sharpness of the garlic in
it is broken.

(from "The Books of the Description of Familiar Foods", trans.
Charles Perry, p. 403, "Medieval Arab Cookery")

My Work-Up:
4-1/2 pounds cracked green olives in brine, drained
a few drops smoke flavoring
1-1/2 heads garlic, peeled
a couple tablespoons dried thyme or zataar herb
1 cup shelled walnuts
1 cup white sesame seeds
1-1/2 Tablespoons light sesame oil
2 to 3 Tablespoons whole cumin seeds

1. Drain olives well.
2. Add a few drops of smoke flavoring to the drained olives. Be sure
to mix very very well.
3. Crush garlic cloves in a food processor or by hand with in a
mortar with a pestle (the latter is what I did).
4. Add thyme to garlic and crush further.
5. Add garlic and thyme to olives. Blend well.
6. Crush walnuts medium-fine in a mortar with a pestle. Add to olives
and mix well.
7. Toast sesame seeds in a frying pan with NO oil, over medium to
medium-low heat, stirring very very frequently, until toasted fairly
evenly to a rich gold. Add to olives and mix well.
8. Put a few tablespoons of sesame oil in frying pan, add several
tablespoons of whole cumin seeds, and cook on medium to medium-low
heat until cumin darkens slightly and aroma comes out. Be careful not
to burn. Stir into olives.
9. Taste. Add more smoke if necessary - use a sparing hand, as too
much is awful.
10. Let olives season for several days well covered in a cool place,
stirring once a day to distribute flavorings. I made them Tuesday
night and served them Saturday night.

NOTE: It is difficult to find plain zataar herb. Every shop I visited
that had zataar had the kind that was a blend of zataar herb, salt,
sesame seeds, and sumak. This blend is not suitable for this recipe.
A friend of mine of Lebanese descent suggested I try the herb called
"Greek oregano". This is NOT the standard oregano sold in
supermarkets, which is "Mexican oregano" and which flavor I do not
like. I did see "Greek oregano" in some of the Near Eastern markets
and will try it when I make these olives again, which I most
definitely will, as they were delicious.

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Sals Abyad - White Sauce (Spiced Walnut-Sesame Butter)

The same of this dish is from some European word for sauce. The
recipe is purely Near Eastern, however. Mustard was used to spike up
some dishes. In Southwest Asia cooks used powdered mustard seed,
while in al-Andalus and al-Maghrib they used prepared mustard.

Original:
Walnuts, garlic, pepper, Chinese cinnamon, white mustard, tahineh and
lemon juice.
(in "The Book of the Description of Familiar Foods", trans. Charles
Perry, p. 389, "Medieval Arab Cookery")

My Work-Up
4 pounds walnuts
4 quarts sesame tahini from a Middle Eastern store - health food
sesame paste doesn't  work as well
several ounces prepared garlic paste with NO additives or preservatives
2 Tablespoons pepper
1/4 cup powdered cinnamon
2 ounces yellow mustard powder
juice from 10 lemons

1.  Grind walnuts finely.
2. Mix walnuts with 2 quarts of tahini.
3.  Mix garlic, pepper, cinnamon and mustard into one quart of tahini.
4. Mix seasoned tahini into walnut-sesame paste.
5. Let stand overnight for flavors to develop.
6. Taste again and adjust seasonings.
7. Shortly before serving stir in fresh lemon juice.
Serve with Near Eastern flat breads - i served Lavosh and a Persian
flat bread whose name i have forgotten.

NOTE: I suspect this is supposed to be more liquid than the very
dense nut butter I got. If i make it again, i'll add enough water and
lemon juice to give it the consistency of modern hummos-bi-tahihi.

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Badhinjan Buran - Princess Buran's Eggplant
Eggplant pureed with yogurt and spices

This is a dish of legend. And I may have created one of my own, as
people came up to me after the feast and confessed that they hated
eggplant and had eaten three servings of it.

As for the history of the dish, Charles Perry has an entire essay
devoted to it in "Medieval Arab Cookery". I'm sure that my
interpretation was also colored by all the multitude of other Buran
and Buraniyya recipes i read.

Original
Take eggplant and boil lightly in water and salt, then take out and
dry for an hour. Fry this in fresh sesame oil until cooked: peel, put
into a dish or large cup, and beat well with a ladle, until it
becomes like khabis [pudding]. Add a little salt and dry coriander.
Take some Persian milk, mix in garlic, pour over the eggplant, and
mix together well. Take red meat, mince fine, make into small kabobs,
add melting fresh tail, throw the meat into it stirring until
browned. Then cover with water, and stew until the water has
evaporated and only the oils remain. Pour on top of this eggplant,
sprinkle with fine-ground cumin and cinnamon, and serve.
(from "A Baghdad Cookery Book", trans. A.J. Arberry, notes by Charles
Perry, p. 59-60, "Medieval Arab Cookery")

(Medieval Arab Cookery)

12 pounds eggplant
-- I used the large ones because they were cheaper, but I suspect
that smaller Asian eggplants would be better
1 pint light sesame oil (or olive oil)
2 quarts whole milk yogurt with NO additives or thickeners
-- I used Pavel's Russian Yogurt - there's nothing in it but milk and
yogurt culture - no gums, no gelatin, no thickeners, etc. - i don't
know if it's available far outside the San Francisco Bay area - use
the best you can find
1/4 cup salt
1 Tablespoon pepper
2 to 3 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons ground coriander seed
1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons ground cumin seed
A few sprigs Fresh mint
1 fresh pomegranate
1 pint whole milk yogurt

1.  If using large eggplants, remove stem end and quarter. Small
eggplants, leave whole.
2. Boil briefly, until just barely tender. I did this in multiple
stages as all the eggplant wouldn't fit into one pot.
3. Put eggplant in a sieve or colander over a bowl or in a clean sink
and let drain. Again I did this in stages. Since modern eggplants
have been bred to be less bitter than Medieval eggplants, I didn't
drain the pieces for a whole hour. After batches had drained for 15
minutes or so, I removed them to a large bowl.
4. Put enough sesame oil in a large frying pan to cover the bottom,
then heat on a  medium-high fire.
5. When oil is hot, add some of drained eggplants - one layer of
eggplant only. Cook until tender, then remove - I drained them in a
colander as I removed them from the pan.
6. When all have been cooked and allowed to cool, puree them. I used
a food processor but a blender would work. And a potato masher or
ricer should work too.
7. When all the eggplants were pureed and in a big container, I added
two quarts of Pavel's yogurt. I honestly believe the quality of the
yogurt affected the taste of the finished dish. But use the best
plain yogurt you can find.
8. After mixing yogurt and eggplant, add spices. Allow to sit
overnight in a cool place for flavor to develop.
9. Peel pomegranate and remove white pith. Separate seeds into a bowl.
10. Dish eggplant into serving bowls, decorate the edge with fresh
mint leaves or sprigs, place a dollop of yogurt in the center of each
dish and top with pomegranate seeds.