[Sca-cooks] Is this a pastry dough?

[Barbara Benson]

Greetings,

I am not much of a baker (but I want to become one) and I found the
following in the Andalusian Cookbook. It looks to me to be like a flay
pastry dough but the very beginning really confuses me:

Preparation of Musammana [Buttered] Which Is Muwarraqa [Leafy]

Take pure semolina or wheat flour and knead a stiff dough without yeast.
Moisten it little by little and don't stop kneading it [p. 63, verso] until
it relaxes and is ready and is softened so that you can stretch a piece
without severing it. Then put it in a new frying pan on a moderate fire.
When the pan has heated, take a piece of the dough and roll it out thin on
marble or a board. Smear it with melted clarified butter or fresh butter
liquified over water. Then roll it up like a cloth until it becomes like a
reed. Then twist it and beat it with your palm until it becomes like a round
thin bread, and if you want, fold it over also. Then roll it out and beat it
with your palm a second time until it becomes round and thin. Then put it in
a heated frying pan after you have greased the frying pan with clarified
butter, and whenever the clarified butter dries out, moisten [with butter]
little by little, and turn it around until it binds, and then take it away
and make more until you finish the amount you need. Then pound them between
your palms[167] and toss on butter and boiling honey. When it has cooled,
dust it with ground sugar and serve it

So, you take your flour and knead it with what?? I spent a good chunk of
time looking through the rest of the cookbook and could not find a generic
recepit for dough. Of course it could be there and my brain just got tired.
Can anyone shed some light upon this?

Glad Tidings,
Serena da Riva


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