[Sca-cooks] Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 125, Issue 40

[David Friedman]

How long is the semolina let to sit damp before you add the leavening 
and start the ordinary bread making process? Someone on the FaceBook SCA 
Cooking group suggested that it was 24 hours in some traditional cuisines.

I am in the process of doing the experiment on that basis.


On 9/25/16 7:51 AM, Terry Decker wrote:
> There are a couple of modern recipes I have encountered where semolina 
> is mixed with water to make a paste in order to soften the fibers in 
> the semolina.  It should produce a less chewy finished product.
>
> Bear
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Ok, the Arabic word translated as remoja is بل (bal), which according 
> Lane's Lexicon means moisten. I think that's much more likely than 
> soak. Interestingly, I've been looking at the couscous recipes in Ibn 
> Razin, the most basic of which also says that the semolina is to be 
> moistened. However, the Arabic words translated as "moistened" are 
> different in the two recipes.
>
> I think that part of what might be going on has to do with how to 
> interpret the instructions in the recipe. I have little direct 
> experience as a baker, but I've watched my wife make bread for decades 
> and over the years have had a lot of conversations with her about the 
> process. Based that experience, I would guess that a 13th century 
> Andalusian baker reading Ibn Razin's recipe would think, "I need to 
> add enough water to make a dough of the correct consistency."
>
> -- Galefridus
>
>
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-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/