[Sca-cooks] Ottoman Bread Porridge

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I have mentioned that quite a few Ottoman recipes are rather bland. Here's one, from among Shirvani's additions:

[107 recto]
Ekmek ashi - Bread Porridge
The manner of making it: Put some water in a pot, drop into it a little butter, after that bring it to a boil, drop into the pot some thinly ​​sliced bread with the crust left on, when it is nearly cooked add some eggs, mix with a spoon, add a little pepper, remove from heat, eat.

Probably another way to use bread that isn't absolutely fresh.

Ashi isn't exactly porridge, but i couldn't think of a better word. Persians cooked in SCA-period, and still cook Ash, which is a very thick soup-like dish, made with starchy things like grains, chickpeas, black-eye beans, lentils, and/or noodles. Shirvani, as his names makes clear, was from the city of Shirvan, which is now in Azerbaijan. During SCA-period, the region was captured back and forth by the Persian and the Ottoman, so it is pretty certain there is Persian influence on Shrivani's recipes.

Just a side note, in the Palace there were two "formal" meals a day, one after morning prayer and one before sundown. The morning meal was the biggest and often quite substantial. The evening meal was smaller and often consisted of the same dishes over and over for weeks on end - as documented for some Sultans, or even years - as for the company of pages who had roast chicken and rice EVERY night, the only variation being seasonal soup.

This porridge might have been part of the morning meal, along with rice, several dishes that included meat, and some sides dishes made with seasonal greens or vegetables.

Urtatim (that's oor-tah-TEEM)