EBBP2 Report & "Maqluba" - medieval Arabic Lamb & Walnut Rissoles

Apologies for the delay - September has been a constant barrage of familial visits, out of town trips and the flu. None of them conducive to culinary blogging!

My EBBP2 parcel was sent by Carolyn of C.18th Cuisine and was a complete surprise to me as I'd forgotten all about the exchange! It was most beautifully presented in a wrapped and sealed tin, but alas I didn't take any photos as my curiousity overwhelmed any thoughts of photography.

Inside the tin I found a little treasure trove of dried staghorn sumac, dried currents (destined for baking I think), strawberry preserve (a delicious breakfast treat) and walnut preserve. I'm particularly fond of walnuts and as Carolyn suggests, they go beautifully with goats cheese so I'm currently saving that for the cheese course of a dinner party.

Sticking with the walnut theme however, I found a nice medieval Islamic recipe with walnuts with which to utilise the sumac. I'm unsure if staghorn sumac is the same as middle eastern sumac, but from the taste, they appear very similar if not identical. The recipe comes from al-Baghdadi, a mid-thirteenth century cookery text from Baghdad (hence the title of the text), which was translated into English by A.J. Arberry in 1939. Keeping scrolls of recipes was considered one of the signs of a gentleman in medieval Arabic culture, so fortunately there is a good collection of extant texts from that timeperiod (even though most aren't translated into English). There is currently a new, improved translation of al-Baghdadi being worked on by Charles Perry, the world-famous expert in medieval Arabic cookbooks and cuisine, but in the meantime the Arberry translation can be found in David Friedman's huge and excellent collection of medieval cooking sources, Cariadoc's Miscellany. Here it is:

Maqluba
“Take and slice red meat, then chop with a large knife. Put into the mortar, and pound as small as possible. Take fresh sumach, boil in water, wring out, and strain. Into this place the minced meat, and boil until cooked, so that it has absorbed all the sumach-water, though covered to twice its depth: then remove from the saucepan and spray with a little lemon-juice. Lay out to dry. Then sprinkle with fine-ground seasonings, dry coriander, cumin, pepper and cinnamon, and rub over it a few sprigs of dry mint. Take walnuts, grind coarse, and add: break eggs and throw in, mixing well. Make into cakes, and fry in fresh sesame-oil, in a fine iron or copper frying-pan. When one side is cooked, turn over on to the other side: then remove.”

Recreations and Bibliography...

David Friedman’s redaction:
10 oz red meat
2 T dried sumac
1/2 c water the sumac was boiled in
1 T lemon juice
1/2 t ground coriander
1/2 t cumin
1/2 t (white) pepper
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t dry mint
1 1/4 c walnuts
5 eggs
2 T non-toasted sesame oil

1. Either use ground lamb or take lamb meat, chop it with a knife, then pound in a mortar. Both ways work but give different textures.
2. Boil sumac in water about 2 minutes, let stand 5 minutes.
3. Then add it to the meat and simmer about 15 minutes.
4. Drain the meat, sprinkle it with lemon juice, let dry about one hour.
5. Mix meat with spices.
6. Grind walnuts coarsely (something between chopped fine and ground coarse).
7. Add walnuts and eggs, fry as patties on a medium griddle.
   Best eaten hot with a little salt. This produces about 20 patties roughly 3 inches in diameter.

My redaction:
150 gm red meat
2 T dried sumac berries
1 t ground dried sumac
1/2 c water the sumac was boiled in
1/2 T lemon juice
1/4 t ground coriander
1/4 t cumin
1/4 t (white) pepper
1/4 t cinnamon
1/2 t dry mint
100 gm walnuts
2 eggs
½ T toasted sesame oil & 1 ½ T vegetable oil

1. Boil the sumac berries in 1 1/2 cups of water until reduced to 1/2 cup.
2. Add the strained water and the ground sumac it to the lamb mince and simmer about 10 minutes.
3. Drain the meat, sprinkle it with lemon juice, let dry about one hour.
4. Mix the meat with spices.
5. Grind walnuts coarsely (something between chopped fine and ground coarse).
6. Mix in the walnuts and eggs.
7. Make into little falafel style cakes and fry on medium heat in a frying pan until done.
   Makes about eight 8cm by 2 cm rissoles, more than enough for 2 people.

I basically followed David Friedman’s directions for my recreation of this dish with slight variations. ‘Red meat’ would most commonly have been lamb, veal, beef or kid in medieval Islamic times (pork, obviously, would never have been eaten), so I used ground lamb mince. Carolyn having very kindly supplied me with the dried sumac, I followed David Friedman’s suggestion of including the water in which it was boiled in the recipe, otherwise apparently the patties turn out rather bland, but I also added a teaspoon of ground sumac to the mince.

Apart from the sumac, all these ingredients are easily acquired, although the sesame oil is not toasted sesame oil. Regarding this David Friedman says, “Islamic recipes often call for sesame oil. This should be the kind of sesame oil sold in Middle Eastern grocery stores, which is made from untoasted sesame seeds and has only a slight flavor; something very similar can be found in health food stores. Chinese sesame oil is made from toasted sesame seeds and is very strongly flavored.” I used a substitution of ½ T toasted sesame oil and 1 ½ T groundnut oil, which seemed to work pretty well.

I must admit patties and rissoles are usually something I avoid, as I never seem to get the binder ingredient right and they fall apart on me. These came out beautifully however. The taste was quite interesting - slightly sour and spicy, very light in flavour and texture, slightly crumbly, and altogether rather like a meat version of a falafel. The walnut and lamb blended together very well and I think this would be a good choice for a light supper. As well as other middle eastern dishes, some sort of creamy sauce would make an excellent accompaniment.

Other uses suggested by Carolyn for sumac include a sumac lemonade, popular during the colonial period. Sumac is used in other medieval Arabic recipes and can be found (as suggested by Giano and Urtatim from the SCA Cooks list) in the inestimable "Medieval Arab Cookery" (which contains several different original sources), and apparently there is a drink recipe in Norah Titley's new book, "The Ni'matnama Manuscript of the Sultans of Mandu:The Sultan's Book of Delights".

This was a really fun Blogging By Post box, and I'd like to thank Carolyn very much. :-)

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Bibliography:

ARBERRY, A.J. translator. "al-Baghdadi, A Baghdad Cookery Book" p. 201/11 c.1226 A.D./623 A.H., Islamic Culture periodical, 1939.

FRIEDMAN, David and COOK, Elizabeth, "Cariadoc’s Miscellany", © 1988, 1990, 1992. Includes full text of Arberry's translation as well as some recipe recreations. Some of which can be found online.

RODINSON, Maxime; ARBERRY, A.J.; PERRY, Charles. editors/translators. "Medieval Arab Cookery" Devon, England: Prospect Books, 2001.

TITLEY, Norah, translator. "The Ni'matnama Manuscript of the Sultans of Mandu: The Sultan's Book of Delights" London & New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.

Comments

[Carolyn]

Wow, Christina, the dish sounds very good--I wish sometimes that we ate more spices and spice mixtures, as was done in the past. I think we miss a lot of flavor.