[Sca-cooks] Spring Investiture Refreshment Table

Lilinah lilinah at earthlink.net
Wed May 21 19:14:08 PDT 2008


This past Saturday, the 17th of May, at the Principality of the Mists 
Spring Investiture, i served a "Refreshment Table" at the request of 
incoming Princess Kamiilah, who has a North African persona and not 
so concerned about historical accuracy. She had said she'd be happy 
with mint tea, orange slices, and some cookies. Who me? Make only 
mint tea and cookies? Hah!

Here's what i prepared:

Beverages:
1. Modern Moroccan mint tea (fresh mint and gunpowder green tea), 
made at Her Highness's request
2. & 3. Two period fruit syrups - cherry and lemon.

Sweets:
I made a couple peri-oid items:
1. Tamar bi'l-Luuz - 50 Medjool dates (the really creamy ones) halved 
and stuffed almond paste
--- i have a recipe for dates stuffed with whole almonds, but not 
almond paste. Almond paste is certainly period, i just don't recall 
seeing a period recipe for stuffing dates with it...
2. Jauz bi'l-Luuz - 100 Walnut halves covered with almond paste
--- i flavored half of the almond paste with pomegranate syrup and rose water
--- and the other half with bitter orange marmalade and orange blossom water

The rest were period:
3. Senbuse Mukallele (from the 15th C. Ottoman version of the 13th C. 
al-Baghdadi recipe)
--- phyllo strips with a dab of almond paste, folded into a triangle 
(like the American flag when it's being put away), then fried in 
butter and sprinkled with powdered sugar
4. Abbasid Qataif (13th C. anonymous Andalusian cookbook)
---- Pastry Rounds (i used Wonton because i didn't have time to make 
my own) filled with Spiced Chopped Nuts, fried in oil, and soaked in 
syrup
5. Halwa bi-Tamar - Dates & Honey Sweet (13th C. anonymous Andalusian cookbook)
--- 1 lb. Medjool dates kneaded with honey and chopped almonds and walnuts
6. Khabisa with Pomegranate (13th C. anonymous Andalusian cookbook)
--- semolina cooked in pomegranate juice and sugar syrup, then formed 
into hazelnut sized balls (i left out the ground almonds so there's 
be something without nut for those with allergies)

7. And i had a friend bake some peri-oid walnut macaroons - made only 
with crushed walnuts, sugar, and egg white, nothing more.

For the most part i made between 50 and 75 of each thing. And my 
friend made about 3 dozen macaroons.

I was going to made a few more items, but i was in a car accident the 
Monday before Investiture that totaled my van (i only got a few 
bruises, but the van is toast). Then i spent most of Wednesday 
dealing with the tow yard and a body shop. So i didn't have as much 
time as i'd planned for and had to skip making several other things.

Everything got scarfed down, except for some Khabisa. 1 qt. 
pomegranate juice and 2 c. fine semolina made close to 200 little 
balls!! of which there were maybe 2 dozen left.

Recipes on demand... err... request...
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

My LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lilinah



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