Sour eggs with celery (bayd masus, بيض مصوص)

This recipe is found in two 13th-century Baghdadi and Egyptian cookery books. It involves sesame oil, eggs, celery, with coriander cumin, cinnamon and mastic. Once they eggs are fried, pour on vinegar, and sprinkle with saffron for colour. The vegetable ingredient merits some attention inasmuch as the Arabic word karafs (كرفس) usually denotes celery, but at the time could also refer to parsley. Modern European celery is not really suited for the dish and the recreation was made with the leaves of Chinese (Nan ling) celery. It works very well with parsley, too.

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