[Sca-cooks] Is this a pastry dough?

[david friedman]

>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?

I've made it many times so I can tell you what I do and how it comes
out, but whether my interpretation is correct is of course still open.

I assume you are kneading the dough with water--that's the one
obvious ingredient, and it fits "moisten." I knead it for a long time
until it is really elastic. I then roll out a piece very thin, brush
it with melted butter or ghee, roll it up, twist and squish until it
is round and thin again. Fold it over in quarters. Squish and roll to
about a six inch circle. Fry it in ghee. When it is cooked take it
out. When it is cool enough to handle beat it between the palms to
loosen the layers. Pour on melted butter and hot honey, dust with
sugar and serve. It's yummy, and its a pastry you can do without an
oven, so works well for Pennsic.

The one bit I'm ignoring is "put it in a new frying pan on a moderate
fire." My assumption is that it really means "put a new frying pan on
a moderate fire;" you are heating the pan you are going to use later.
At least, I can't see any other way of making sense of it.

You can find a more complete description of how I do it in the
Miscellany, webbed on my site.
--
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/