[Sca-cooks] Sweating meat

David Friedman ddfr at daviddfriedman.com
Mon Apr 8 19:19:34 PDT 2013


Making Spinach and Cabbage Dishes: al-Warraq

Today I did one of the recipes we didn't get around to at our most 
recent cooking workshop. It came out quite well, but raised a few 
interesting questions. Here is the recipe:
-------------
Making Spinach and Cabbage Dishes
al-Warraq p. 265

Isbanakhiyyat (spinach dishes) and kurunbiyyat (cabbage dishes) are 
cooked the same way. The only difference is the vegetable used. 
Whichever vegetable you choose, start by cleaning it of any unwanted 
weeds, and cutting off and discarding roots and stalks. Boil it in water 
until almost cooked, take it out, and put it in cold water.

Now cut medium-size pieces of meat taken from atraf al-mulha'(from the 
backbone area, the first few ribs, (awa'il al-adla), and some fatty cuts 
of meat. Put them in a clean pot and add to them [chopped] white parts 
of fresh onion, a few drops of sweet olive oil, and galangal and cassia, 
a stick each. Sweat the meat [until all moisture evaporates]. Then pour 
water over it, enough to cover, [and let it boil.] Skim the froth and 
impurities as they come up.

When meat is cooked, wash for it some rice, and add it to the pot along 
with salt as needed, and a little black pepper. Add the vegetables, let 
the pot cook for a short while then serve the dish.

If you like, add to the pot [while still cooking] whole carrots. Take 
them out when cooking is done, slice them into rounds lake darahim 
(coins), and arrange them on the ladled out dish. Serve it with murri, 
God willing.
----------
The first question is what it means to "sweat" the meat until all 
moisture evaporates. One of the dishes that got done in the workshop had 
a similar instruction. The cooks interpreted it as a very long slow 
cooking until no more liquid appeared, and the result was dry and rather 
over cooked.

I instead cooked the meat (with onion and spices) for about ten minutes 
in a covered saucepan until it gave up a good deal of liquid, which is 
more like sweating, then removed the cover and spent the next fourteen 
minutes cooking the liquid away.

At that point the lamb was most of the way cooked--but it looks from the 
recipe as though I'm supposed to add water, continue until it is cooked, 
then add rice and cooked cabbage (I was using cabbage not spinach). I 
figured the rice would take at least twenty minutes to cook, and the 
carrots about as long, and that would be plenty of cooking for the lamb. 
So I added the water, brought it back to a boil, added the rice, 
carrots, salt and pepper, cooked it for another twenty minutes or so, 
drained and chopped the cabbage, added that, cooked it for another five 
minutes and served it. It was quite good.

The one difference between what I did and what the recipe says to do was 
the cooking time for the lamb. The original might have used mutton, 
which would take longer to cook, or larger chunks of meat, which would 
also take longer. It's even possible that the rice being added was 
already cooked, although I think that is unlikely.

For anyone who wants to try it, here are my quantities.

1 ¼ lb cabbage
1 lb lamb cut into 12 pieces
1.5 oz = ½ c chopped white of leeks
1 T Olive oil
½ oz Galangal root (fresh)
1 stick Cassia (cinnamon)
1 c Rice
½ t Salt
¼ t Pepper
3 Carrots, ~ ½ lb in total

-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/




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