[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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