[Sca-cooks] Dried fish question

[David Friedman]

Al-Baghdadi has a recipe for Maqluba al-tirrikh, which involves frying 
tirrikh, a kind of fish, boning it, crumbling it, mixing in eggs and 
spices, and frying it. We've made it in the past using the Arberry 
translation. Since we had no source for tirrikh we made maqluba al-catfish.

Looking at Perry's newer translation, I noticed that tarrikh are dried 
fish of a particular variety. We are always interested in ways of 
managing Pennsic without a cooler, so dried fish sounded interesting—the 
more so since one of our campmates does not eat meat but does eat fish.

Our local Chinese supermarket carries a number of different varieties of 
dried fish, most of them in the refrigerated section. I got one 
yesterday from an unrefrigerated shelf and tried making a small amount 
of the recipe. The result was not tasty—and the smell in the kitchen 
unpleasant.

1. Does anyone have any information on what tirrikh were like, hence 
what varieties of fish would be closest? Perry, in an old correspondence 
I had with him, mentioned that salted fish from the relevant lake are 
still sold in Istanbul under the name "kefal," which is the name of the 
grey mullet. He doesn't know if what are now sold are the same as what 
were called tirikh, and the grey mullet is a salt water fish, but it at 
least suggests the possibility of looking for a fresh water fish in some 
way similar to the mullet. Of course, even if I did that, I would still 
have the problem of figuring out what kind of fish are in the packages 
of dried fish in the Chinese grocery store.

2. Al-Baghdadi's recipe starts by frying the tirrikh, then boning it. 
The dried fish I got was very dry, like wood. That made me wonder if 
either something softer was being used or if the fish was rehydrated and 
then fried and al-Baghdadi didn't bother to mention the first step.

Comments? Is anyone here better informed about dried fish than I am?

Incidentally, the grocery also had something labeled stockfish. I 
believe it said it was salted. So another project is to find a period 
recipe that says how to treat stockfish—I'm pretty sure I've seen one.

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