[Sca-cooks] Another recipe interpretation question

[Mairi Ceilidh]

> I'm looking at the syrup of mint in the Al-Andalus:
>
> Take mint and basil, citron and cloves, a handful of each, and cook all
> this in water to cover, until its substance comes out, and add the clear
> part of it to a ratl of sugar. The bag: an ûqiya of flower of cloves, and
> cook all this until a syrup is made. Its benefits: it frees bodies that
> suffer from phlegm, and cuts phlegmatic urine, fortifies the liver and the
> stomach and cheers it a great deal; in this it is admirable.
>
> Do you think I could substitute lemon or bitter orange for the citron? Or
> are citron leaves meant? Would it be ok to omit them entirely?

***I have been using lemon peel to substitute for citron in some things I
have been doing lately, but I am not sure how good of a substitution it is.
If you find citrons, I would love to know where.
>
> What about the flower of cloves? Ground cloves? I'm confused. Any ideas?

***Since the part of the clove that we use as a spice is the flower, I would
think whole cloves is what they mean.  Sounds to me as though they are
putting it in a bag to infuse the flavor and make it easy to remove before
using the syrup.  Or perhaps you are putting ground clove in a bag to keep
it from clouding the syrup.  Have I added enough to the confusion?  The
problem I have is that it sounds as though they have two steps in which to
add cloves.  Admittedly, I am not overly fond of heavy clove flavor, but
that sounds like an awful lot even for a clove lover.

Just my opinion. YMMV.

Mairi Ceilidh


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