[Sca-cooks] What Samidh Flour Isn't

[Galefridus Peregrinus]

A similar discussion of this matter has been occurring on Facebook, so I am reposting here the comments I made there.

Before reading the recipe:
"The problem that I see with semolina flour is that it has the opposite characteristic of what's specified. Semolina is relatively low starch and high gluten -- that's why it's used for pasta. And while the recipe specifies exact weights of flour and water, I know from living with a baker that such information is often provided as more of a guideline than a set of exact instructions. When she makes bread or other raised dough baked goods, my wife routinely adjusts the ingredients until the dough "feels right." I'll ask her when she gets back from traveling -- she's out of town until Sunday."

After reading the recipe:
"I checked the al-Warraq recipe for aqrās fatīt/crumbly crackers. It seems to me that as both the flour and the bread itself are described, it pretty much has to be a low gluten flour that is used. If it were made with a high gluten flour like semolina, then it would be highly unlikely that the final product would "crumble in the mouth" when eaten, as the recipe describes."

-- Galefridus

>> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 20:47:42 -0700
> From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
> To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Subject: [Sca-cooks] What Samidh Flour Isn't
> Message-ID: <520C4F5E.7030307 at daviddfriedman.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> Lots of al Warraq's recipes specify samidh flour. I have usually 
> interpreted that as semolina, following out Charles Perry's suggestion, 
> but there isn't much evidence. Nasrallah, the translator, mentions two 
> similar kinds of flour of which the samidh has lower gluten. That 
> suggests that perhaps I ought to be using ordinary bread flour, or even 
> cake flour, as per our recent discussion.
> 
> So I decided on an experiment. I've done the recipe for crumbly crackers 
> multiple times using semolina, and been happy at the result. They keep 
> well and my daughter likes them, so too many isn't a serious problem. 
> Finally, the recipe specifies quantities for flour and water, by 
> weight--both measured in ratl's, giving an unambiguous ratio. I mixed up 
> two batches, one using cake flour and one using ordinary all purpose flour.
> 
> The recipe tells you to knead vigorously then set aside to ferment. In 
> the case of the cake flour, that was impossible, because using the ratio 
> by weight specified in the recipe produced something closer to a batter 
> than a dough--not kneadable. The regular flour wasn't quite that bad 
> when I initially mixed it up, although it was pretty wet, but by the 
> time it had fermented for ten hours, my usual, it too was too liquid for 
> the final kneading. I ended up putting in about half again as much flour 
> in each as the recipe called for.
> 
> I don't know whether samidh is semolina but it could be. It can't be 
> anything very close to either of the other two flours I've tried.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> David Friedman
> www.daviddfriedman.com
> http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/