[Sca-cooks] Follow up on Marzipan Question

[Anne duBosc]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]

Thank you, Anahita.
 lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:Mordonna wrote:
>Mistress Isabel du Lac d'Azure tells me that there is a recipe in "A Baghdad
>Cookery Book" called Khabis al-Lauz that is Marzipan. I'm at work and don't
>have my copy of His Grace's "Collection" in front of me. Can someone post
>the recipe, please?

Not quite. Khabis is basically a kind of pudding. "al-Lauz" means
"with almonds".

Here's the recipe. Not quite marzipan, although made with almonds and sugar.

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A Baghdad Arab Cookery Book
p.83, in Medieval Arab Cookery

Take one ratl of peeled ground sweet almonds and three ratls of
sugar. Put the sugar into a dish and dissolve with two uqiyas of rose
water. When the sugar has dissolved and has begun to set, add the
ground almonds and stir until done. Serve out, coating under and over
with fine ground sugar. This may also be made with flour: put with
the ratl of sugar two uqiya of flour then proceed as above.

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On page 82 is basic khabis, made with soft bread crumbs, sesame oil, and sugar.
On page 83, is a second recipe for basic khabis, along with Khabis
al-Lauz, and Khabis al-Qar' - made with pureed white flower gourd,
sesame oil, white flour, and syrup - and Khabis al-Jazar - made with
pureed carrots "as above" (not sure which of the above four recipes
preceding it - probably the gourd recipe).

The Book of the Description of Familiar Foods has two recipes for
each of the above, plus an additional one called Asyutiyya - i.e.,
from the Egyptian city of Asyut.

Asyutiyya has a fairly complex list of ingredients - bread crumbs,
honey, syrup, poppy seeds, dates, saffron, almonds, pistachios, musk,
and rosewater. The directions are interesting - you put all this
stuff between two layers of flat bread, put it in a pot, cover it
with a mixture of sesame oil and melted fat-tail sheep tail fat and
boil it with the addition of water in a tannur (oven - this Persian
word is the source of the Indian word "tandoor").

I often cook Pomegranate Khabis for Sunday morning breakfast at
events - semolina, ground almonds, sugar, rosewater, and pomegranate
juice (i buy it unsweetened) - i think this particular khabis is from
the Anonymous Andalusian cookbook.

Anahita
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Lady Anne du Bosc
Known as Mordonna The Cook
Atenveldt, Atenveldt
mundanely Pat Griffin
Phoenix, AZ


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