[Sca-cooks] Asabi Zainab

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Cynara wrote:
>Since you don't care for rosewater, you might try orange blossom water. It
>has the same kind of floral character but I personally find it much more
>pleasant. It's called for in several early Catalan recipes so it should be
>appropriate for this dish.

I love orange flower water. It is used in Spanish and Catalan recipes 
as well as in modern Moroccan recipes.

However, i haven't seen orange flower water in the Abbasid cookbooks, 
of which the Book of the Description of Familiar Foods is one.

So while i think it's perfectly fine to substitute for rose water in 
a modern recipe, it wouldn't do for a period recreation in my opinion.

I think it would depend on the reason one is making the sweet. For 
entry into a competition, i would want to avoid ingredients i don't 
find in the particular cookbook, no matter how tasty they are.

Anahita