[Sca-cooks] Ingredient Puzzles in al-Warraq

[Susan Lin]

We've made Naan horizontal and it's worked out just fine.  Don't know why
it would make a difference.

Shoshanah


On Sun, Sep 15, 2013 at 12:43 AM, David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>wrote:

>
> On 9/14/13 6:34 PM, lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
>
>> David Friedman / Cariadoc wrote:
>>
>>> But I still don't know what samidh is. Nasrallah says it is "fine flour,
>>> bran free, high in starch content, and low in gluten." Perry says it is
>>> coarsely ground, which is inconsistent with only the "fine" part of
>>> Nasrallah's description. So what modern flour would fit the description?
>>>
>>> One thing I find puzzling is the "low in gluten." al-Warraq uses samidh
>>> for various leavened breads, and I thought the problem with low gluten
>>> flours was that they didn't rise well. Am I mistaken?
>>>
>> I don't know how much of a rise you are expecting.
>>
>> >From what i can tell, indigenous Near and Middle Eastern breads do not
>> rise much. Modern Persian and Afghan breads are not much over 1" high, and
>> often less. A certain bread i bought in Morocco was especially tall, maybe
>> 2" high, made of semolina flour with orange flower water and anise, but NOT
>> sweetened - a very dense and tough but fragrant loaf, meant, i am sure, to
>> be soaked in the sauces of a tajin.
>>
>> I typed out at least 6 of al-Warraq's recipes, and other than the
>> "bottle" bread, they are all meant to be slapped on the sides of a tannur,
>> so they can't be very "fluffy". They are described as khubz (flat bread)
>> and ruqaq (very thin bread), so it seems to me they are not meant to rise
>> much at all.
>>
>> I HIGHLY recommend "Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker's Atlas" by Jeffrey
>> Alford and Naomi Duguid. It's modern but gives a fantastic idea of breads
>> in the Near and Middle East and Central Asia today.
>>
>> Also, since i don't recall seeing a tannur at your house, how are you
>> baking these? standing up pizza tiles in your oven and slapping the bread
>> on them?
>>
> Baking stone in the oven, horizontal not vertical. Do you think the
> orientation is important?
>
>
> --
> David Friedman
> www.daviddfriedman.com
> http://daviddfriedman.**blogspot.com/<http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/>
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