[Sca-cooks] Soaking Semolina and When Life Gives You Lemons

[David Friedman]

As described in a previous message, I ended up with 2c semolina in about 
1 1/2c water and the question of what to do with it. One obvious 
solution was to add more semolina. Since the bread was a first try 
experiment, I didn't want to make a lot of it.

So I took one cup of the semolina mix, combined it with a cup of 
semolina (Indian Sooji in both cases), 2T sourdough and 1/2 t salt, 
kneaded it smooth. It's now sitting wrapped in linen and (hopefully) rising.

That left me with another cup of the semolina mix. As I mentioned in 
another message, what Susan described as the third bread recipe in 
/Fadalat/ looked to me like a variant on a dish I'm familiar with and 
have made many times from the Anonymous Andalusian. So I decided to make 
it.

Another cup of semolina added to the remaining mix, knead for a long 
time until it's very elastic, roll out very thin, brush with melted 
butter, fold. For some I did one fold, for some multiple folds. Roll it 
a bit thinner, press with the palm, fry it in butter. I started using 
regular butter then switched to clarified butter (ghee) because it works 
better as a cooking oil. I don't know if the Arabic original specified.

After using all my dough, beating each piece between my hands after 
frying to loosen it, I poured on some hot beaten honey (not sure how I 
should be whipping it), sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, notified the rest 
of the family that we had a late desert.

The main question that occurs to me is whether to interpret the 
instructions as separating it into the component layers before adding 
honey and serving. That might be easier if I interpret the folding as a 
single fold. The version I'm familiar with has you roll out the dough, 
brush on butter, roll it up like  carpet, twist, flatten, fold, flatten, 
which gives you many layers. You strike it between your hands at the end 
to loosen them, but you don't try to pull the individual layers apart. 
Perhaps for this you do, since it does say:

"hit it with your hand so it breaks and separates one piece from another."

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