[Sca-cooks] Mastic

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Ursula Whitcher <ursula at tutelaries.net> wrote:
> Has been anyone here ever cooked with mastic? I see it is used in some of
> the Andalusian recipes. How would you describe the taste?

I used it when making the Roman beverage Conditum Paradoxum - wine sweetened with honey and seasoned with mastic, saffron, black pepper, and malabathron leaves (i used bay leaves, which is what the folks in the Indian spice shop said they use when they can't get malabathron leaves)

The flavor mastic imparts is mild, with a hint of piquancy. It's definitely distinctive when used in a dish. My daughter was just sailing around the eastern Mediterranean (yes, in a sail boat) and is bringing me some mastic as a gift.

I notice it is used in a few savory dishes, a couple sweets, and a number of the sharbat in the anonymous Andalusian. And it is used in quite a few recipes in the *other* Andalusian cookbook, the Fadalat al-Khiwan. Besides being included in sweets - the most common use - it's in several chicken recipes, even more fish dishes, and is even among the seasonings in a somewhat haggis like dish.

Urtatim