[Sca-cooks] alfajores/al-hasu

[Huette von Ahrens]

Where did you find this information?  It doesn't match any information that
I have seen or read.  It sounds very much apocryphal to me.

The filled alfajores that I know of are only 19th century.  The Spanish
alfajores are entirely different and are a small cake make with honey
and almonds/  The only connection that they have is their name.

Having checked "An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th Century"
Translated by Charles Perry.  I have found no recipe named Alfajores or
al-Hasu.  I did find this recipe, which seems to be close to the Spanish
version, but not the South American version.


Making Stuffed Isfunj
Take semolina and sift it, and take the flour and put it in a dish. Take 
water and sprinkle it lightly on the semolina. Then put your hand in it 
and gather it all up and cover it with a second dish, leaving it until 
it sweats. Then uncover it and mix it until it becomes like white flour 
[that is, the durum ground wheat should resemble soft wheat flour]. Throw 
oil in it, and mix it, and put in leavening and eggs, throw in a measure 
of five eggs and then mix the dough with the eggs. Then put it in a new 
pot, after greasing it with oil, and leave it until it rises. Then take 
almonds, walnuts, pine nuts and pistachios, all peeled, and pound in a 
mortar until as fine as salt. Then take pure honey and put it on the fire 
and boil it until it is on the point of thickening. Then take the almonds, 
walnuts, pistachios and pine-nuts that you have pounded, and throw all this 
upon the honey and stir it until it is thickened. Then take the semolina 
dough that was put in the pot, and make a thin, small flat cake (raghîf) 
of it, and put on it a morsel of this thickened paste. Then take the raghîf 
with your hand and turn it until it is smooth and round and bite-sized. 
[This sentence is in Huici-Miranda's Spanish translation but not in the 
published Arabic text] Make all the dough according to this recipe, until 
the filling is used up. The dough should be only moderately thin. Then take 
a frying pan and put oil in it, and when it starts to boil, throw in a piece 
of isfunj and fry it with a gentle fire until it is done. And if you wish to 
thicken with sugar, do so, and if you with to throw almonds, ground sugar, 
and rosewater into the filling, do so and it will come out aromatic and agreeable.

Huette
Caid






--- Suey <lordhunt at gmail.com> wrote:

> These are cookies with filling of Arab origin. In Spain they date back 
> to the 8th Century, although Argentineans declare them as a national 
> creole dessert but they are thought to date back to the 19th only there. 
> That is odd as the conquistadors brought Hispano-Arab concubines with 
> them to the new world who in turn brought their recipes. Spanish 
> alfajores (al-hasu in Arabic) are square not round as in South America. 
> The idea is to fill them with quince. Now the question is does anyone 
> have a dependable recipe for them and/or any more news on their history?
> Sue
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> 


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