[Sca-cooks] Uses for fava beans....

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

There are several tasty but simple recipes in "The Book of the 
Description of Familiar Foods", a 14th c. manuscript that includes 
all of al-Baghdadi, the recipes from the "expanded version" of 
al-Baghdadi, and many new ones.

I cooked the ones that are in the chapter that has recipes "for monks 
and Christians in Lent" in Spring of this year - even won a Wooden 
Spoon competition (well, ok, tied with a cooking Laurel, so we both 
got spoons).

I posted to this list the layered dish in which i used fresh favas - 
it would be different with dried, but still edible - Maghmuma, i 
think was the name - i'll look it out in the morning. This was 
somewhat complicated. The ingredients (all vegetables) are cut up and 
layered in the cooking pot separately, each layer is sprinkled with 
spices as it's added, then when they're all in the pot, the liquids 
are poured in, and it's cooked without stirring...

I'm not sure if i posted the other recipes. I'll look for them in the 
AM too. I used canned favas where were "reconstituted" dried ones. 
The resultant dishes were simple, filling, and satisfying for a cold 
evening. The recipes included bread, vinegar, and murri (ok, sounds 
drab, but i really liked it).

Light soy sauce is a very acceptable substitute according to Charles 
Perry who made murri from scratch - moldy damp barley loaves - etc. I 
finally got to read his articles about the process that were in the 
LA Times, minus the photos of the loaves, alas - they had *names* - 
including Spot, Whiskers, Skinhead, and Pigpen... anyway, the final 
product tasted a lot like a somewhat less "rich" soy sauce. Some 
Asian soy sauces are about 50 per cent grain, and those - or lesser 
varieties that use even more grain - would be closer to murri than a 
good aged tamari (yes, Virginia, tamari tastes significantly 
different from the average Kikkoman, which is rather more watery)

Anyway, dried fava recipes in the morning... it's getting close to 
time to toddle off to bed.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita