[Sca-cooks] Khabisa with Pomegranate
Lilinah
lilinah at earthlink.net
Fri Mar 28 12:27:09 PDT 2008
Lady Anne du Bosc Known as Mordonna The Cook wrote:
>Since the original recipe calls for "semolina" and not "ground semolina" or
>"semolina flour", I would substitute wheat berries. Whole different texture
>going on, I'd think.
I do not agree. Nearly all the recipes in the
Andalusian cookbook that call for semolina treat
it as a flour or at least a milled grain. In some
one mixes it with water and works it with the
hands, not what one would do with a whole grain.
In the case of the Pomegranate Khabisa as well, i
believe strongly that milled grain would be what
would be used.
Here are some examples - i've put *asterisks*
around the first use of the word in each recipe...
-------
66. Recipe for Barmakiyya
It is made with a hen, pigeons, doves, small
birds or lamb. Take what you have of them, after
cleaning, and cut up and put in a pot with salt,
an onion, pepper, coriander and lavender or
cinnamon, some murri naqi', and oil. Put it on a
gentle fire until it is nearly done and the sauce
is dried. Take it out and fry it in fresh oil
without overdoing it, and leave it aside. Then
take fine flour and *semolina*, make a well-made
dough with leaven, and if it has some oil it will
be more flavorful. Then roll out from it a flat
bread and put inside it the fried and cooked meat
of these birds, cover it with another flat bread
and stick the ends together. Put it in the oven,
and when the bread is done, take it out. It is
very good on journeys. You might make it with
fish and that can be used for journeying too.
-----
125. 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 (raghif) of it, and put on it a
morsel of this thickened paste. Then take the
raghif 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.
-----
134. A Sukkariyya from His Dictation
Take a ratl of sugar, pound and sift. Take a
third of a ratl of fresh oil and put it in an
earthenware pot, and when it is on the point of
boiling, throw in a third of a ratl of white
flour and two uqiyas of bread crumbs from white
wheat or *semolina*, and stir it two or three
times. Throw in the sugar and two uqiyas of
rosewater and scrape it [yuhakk; if not an error
for yuharrak, stir it ] until the oil appears as
a ring and the faludhaja (pudding) appears
combined and coagulated. Take it off the fire,
remove the oil and present it, God willing.
145. The Making of Dafâir, Braids
Take what you will of white flour or of
*semolina*, which is better in these things.
Moisten it with hot water after sifting, and
knead well, after adding some fine flour,
leavening, and salt. Moisten it again and again
until it has middling consistency. Then break
into it, for each ratl of semolina, five eggs and
a dirham of saffron, and beat all this very well,
and put the dough in a dish, cover it and leave
it to rise, and the way to tell when this is done
is what was mentioned before [it holds an
indentation]. When it has risen, clean a frying
pan and fill it with fresh oil, then put it on
the fire. When it starts to boil, make braids of
the leavened dough like hair-braids, of a
handspan or less in size. Coat them with oil and
throw them in the oil and fry them until they
brown. When their cooking is done, arrange them
on an earthenware plate and pour over them
skimmed honey spiced with pepper, cinnamon,
Chinese cinnamon, and lavender. Sprinkle it with
ground sugar and present it, God willing. This
same way you make isfunj, except that the dough
for the isfunj will be rather light. Leave out
the saffron, make it into balls and fry them in
that shape, God willing. And if you wish stuffed
dafair or isfunj, stuff them with a filling of
almonds and sugar, as indicated for making
qahiriyat.
195. Preparation of Sanbûsak (Stuffed Dumplings):
Take meat of the innards or any meat you wish and
pound fine, and pick out its tendons, and put
cut-up fat with it, about a third the amount of
the meat, and throw upon all many spices, and
increase the pepper, onion juice, cilantro, rue
and salt, and mix well, and throw in oil and a
little water until wrinkled. Take *semolina* and
knead well with clarified butter and a little
pepper, and take an amount of the dough the size
of a walnut, and roll it out as large as half a
hand-span, and take a piece of stuffing as large
as a walnut and put it in the middle of the
dough, and wrap up the edges over it, and fry it
in fresh oil, and dispose of it as you wish, God
willing.
-----
One can search the Anonymous Andalusian cookbook
to find that there are quite a few more recipes
that call for flour or semolina or for bread made
of flour or of semolina, all of which lead me to
believe that the ground grain is being called for
in the Pomegranate Khabisa recipe and not a whole
grain.
--
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita
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