[Sca-cooks] Semolina, Khabisa with Pamegranate

[David Friedman]

>     "Khabisa with Pomegranate" is from "An 
>Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th. 
>Century" translated by Charles Perry,  (webbed 
>at 
>http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian_contents.htm 
>) and specifically calls for Semolina. 
>Considering the constancy of the finished 
>cookies, I do not think that Cracked wheat would 
>work as well (but I will try it :)
>Below is my recipe with the original.
>Dinah / Sayyida Dinah bint Ismai'l
>
>
>Khabîsa with Pomegranate
>
>Take half a ratl of sugar and put it in a metal 
>or earthenware pot and pour in three ratls of 
>juice of sweet table pomegranates [rummân sufri; 
>probably tart pomegranates were more common in 
>cooking] and half an û qiya of rosewater, with a 
>penetrating smell. Boil it gently and after two 
>boilings, add half a mudd of semolina and boil 
>it until the semolina is cooked. Throw in the 
>weight of a quarter dirham of ground and sifted 
>saffron, and three û qiyas of almonds. Put it in 
>a dish and sprinkle over it the like of pounded 
>sugar, and make balls [literally, hazelnuts] of 
>this.
>
>
>
>My redaction:
>
>2 ½ cups Sugar
>
>3 tbs. Pomegranate Syrup
>
>2 ½ cups Water
>
>1/3 cup Rosewater
>
>1 1/3 to 1 ½ lbs. Semolina, Fine Grain
>
>10 to 12 oz. Ground Almonds
>
>4 or 5 threads of Saffron
>
>Power Sugar to roll in

I don't see how you can make these quantities 
consistent with the original text. You are 
supposed to have six times as much pomegranate 
juice as sugar, by weight--and the density of 
sugar is close to that of water, so that means 
about six times as much by volume. Even if we 
assume that your water plus syrup is intended as 
reconstituted pomegranate juice--and I think you 
have way too little syrup for that--you still 
have only one sixth the amount of pomegranate 
juice called for in the recipe. Am I missing 
something--as your text appears on my machine, 
there is a symbol ½, which looks like a large pi, 
before "cups" in each case. I'm assuming it is 
1/2.

A mudd is about four liters, or roughly a gallon, 
so a mudd of semolina would weigh a little over 
four pounds. So the ratio of semolina to sugar 
should be about four to one by weight. Your ratio 
is less than half that. The ratio of pomegranate 
juice to semolina should be about 3:2. Yours is 
more like 2:3.

The ratio of rosewater to sugar by weight should 
be one to twelve--there are 12 uqiyas to the 
ratl, just as in the troy system of ounces and 
pounds. Yours is more like one to four.

I don't know if you noticed the information on 
period Islamic weights and measures in the 
translation--it's at the back.