Category: Meat dishes

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Abbasid Rice Harisa (harisat al-aruzz)

The name of the dish (هريسة) is derived from the verb harasa (هرس), ‘to beat, crush, shred’, and was made with wheat or rice. The popularity of this dish, which was commonly prepared and sold at markets, was such that its ingredients were carefully monitored by the market inspector. Recipes for this dish can be found in nearly all cookery books and many dietary manuals.

This recipe from Abbasid times requires fatty meat (I used goat) which is cooked in water and salt until it falls apart, with some additional pounding in the mortar and pestle to achieve the right consistency. Milk is then cooked in the broth, after which rice is added, followed by sesame oil and rendered fat (one could also use milk or clarified butter). The important thing is to beat the mixture continually unitl you get a nougat type consistency. It is served with a bowl of murri, which, in addition to being a matter of taste, is rooted in medicine since physicians held that harisa (especially that made with wheat) was very nutritional but difficult to digest, which was remedied by the use of murri. If you don’t have this condiment in your pantry, don’t worry since it can easily be replaced with soya sauce!

Still made in many countries. the modern haris (هريس) is particularly associated with Emirate cuisine and made from wheat, meat (usually chicken or lamb), and a pinch of salt. The wheat is soaked overnight, then cooked with meat.

However, the dish recreated here bears a much closer resemblance to the modern Gulf favourite madruba (مضروبة, ‘beaten’), which is usually made with rice but can also commonly be found with wheat, or the ‘arsiyya (عرسية), a favourite in Oman and the Emirate of Fujairah. This name, which indicates that it was traditionally served at weddings (عرس, ‘urs), is already found in a 13th-century Baghdadi cookery book for the rice harisa.

The dish should not be confused with the Tunisian condiment of the same name (usually spelled harissa in English), which is a chilli pepper paste, and may have taken its name from the similarity in texture with the original harisa.

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Medieval Syrian chicken hazelnut stew

This is a recreation of a 13th-century dish from Aleppo, which was a hit in other parts as well since very popular dish since similar recipes can be found in Egyptian cookery books from the 14th and 15th centuries. It is called a bunduqiyya (بندقية), from the Arabic word bunduq (بندق), meaning ‘hazelnuts’, after the principal ingredient.

It is actually a variant of a dish made with pistachios known as fustuqiyya (فستقية , from فستق/fustuq, ‘pistachios). After boiling and frying a chicken, hazelnuts are pounded and added to thick rose-water syrup in which starch and honey are cooked to produce a thick creamy sauce. The fried chicken is then added to this and left for a little while, or, as per some recipes, simply dunked in the sauce before serving.

Hazelnuts were relatively rarely used in the medieval Arabic culinary literature, and are found mainly in Egyptian and Syrian cookery books. They are conspicuous by their absence from Abbasid cookery books and occur only once or twice in medieval Andalusi and North African recipes. They were generally toasted before use. In the same cookery book from which the recipe is taken, hazelnuts are said to be better and more beneficial for one’s health than almonds or walnuts. According to some physicians, hazelnuts increase sexual potency, while being beneficial for treating bites, especially when eaten with figs and rue, and against scorpion stings, not least because scorpions apparently fled at the sight of them.

The Arabic word for hazelnut, al-bunduqa (البندقة) came to be the word for meatballs in North African and Andalusi Arabic, in reference to their size. Later on, this became the Spanish word for meatball, albóndiga.

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Andalusian medicinal kebabs

This recipe by the Cordoban physician Abu ‘l-Qasim al-Zahrawi (c. 936-1013), who has been called the Father of surgery, is for a dish of fried slices of meat, known as tabahija (طباهجة), also tabahaja and even tabahijiyya (طباهجية), which he prescribed for people suffering from dropsy (حبن, haban).

The word ultimately goes back to the Persian tabāhah (تباهه), which could denote “stewed meat; a light dish made of aubergine, sour milk and herbs; eggs, dressed with meat, vinegar, pepper, and pulse” (Steingass 1892: 278). The Persian tabahja (طباهجه) and tabahij (طباهیج), on the other hand, referred to an omelette or soft meat.

This recreation of a ‘tasty’ (طيبة, tayyiba) tabahija is very easy to make and involves thinly sliced meat being soaked in wine vinegar and some murri, after which it is fried with a sprinkling of caraway, cumin and pepper. When it is done, drizzle on a little cooked down aromatic wine, and add chopped fresh coriander, celery and rue.

The tabahija was very popular, as evidenced by its occurrence in a number of medieval Arabic culinary treatises, from Abbasid Iraq, Egypt and al-Andalus. One Abbasid culinary author traced it back to the Sasanid king Bahram whose retinue shot a deer and cut part of it in thin slices, which they proceeded to cook in fat. At first the king was shocked at what he considered the spoiling of the meat by slicing but after tasting it he greatly liked it. The same author contrasted tabāhijas with mutajjanat (مطجنات), which were cooked in a tajine (طاجن, from the Greek teganon, ‘pan’), usually made of copper; the former contain boneless and sliced meat, and the latter jointed chickens with the bones.

In the Arabic tradition, the tabahijas were considered varieties of stews (قلايا, qalaya), which contain a broth (مرق, maraq) and are cooked until they become dry. Sometimes a distinction was made between sour (حامض, hamid) and salty (مالح, malih) tabahijas.

In the medical literature, the tabahija was thought to strengthen the bowels, stimulate the appetite, and be particularly good for those who engage in physical exertion, but may cause nausea and abdominal pain, and be harmful to the joints.

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Mamluk Quince and Goat Stew

A wonderful sweet-and-sour dish called masusiyya (مصوصية), from a 14th-century recipe collection compiled in Mamluk Egypt, but with clear Abbasid origins. It is made made with goat meat (though the author says some people used mutton), which is first boiled and then added with chopped onions, salt, spices, fresh mint, celery, garlic, aubergine, and vinegar. Finally, a mixture of pomegranate juice with quince juice is poured on in with sugar, and then spikenard, saffron, mastic and nutmeg.

In keeping with the elite character of the dish, it is also coloured with saffron. Both the masusiyya and a related dish known as masus (مصوص), which is found in a number of cookery books and goes back to the earliest Abbasid tradition. Both dishes are vinegar based, linked to the fact that the latter word meant ‘meat steeped and cooked in vinegar’, though both are related to the verb massa (مَصَّ), ‘to suck’.

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Medieval Syrian Mujaddara

Cooking a 13th-century ancestor of a modern classic from a Syrian recipe — one of two from that period, the other being by a Baghdadi author, which shows the popularity and spread of the dish.

It is made by boiling lamb (though one can only use chicken or any other meat) with rice and chickpeas shaped into large meatballs. The meat is then fried before the broth is returned to it, together with chickpeas. Then the noodles are added and when they are done, it is time to serve!

The medieval mujaddara (مجدّرة) was made with rice (or, as in this case, noodles), lentils and meat. It was also slightly more ‘soupy’ in consistency than the modern variety, which is vegetarian, while bulghur sometimes replaces rice (notably in Palestinian cuisine), and it is served with a topping of fried onion.

The word translates as ‘pock-marked’ (from جدري/judari, ‘smallpox’), in reference to the appearance of the lentils amidst the rice.

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Abbasid beef barida

This recipe, which dates from the earliest Arab culinary tradition, is for a so-called ‘cold’ dish (باردة, bārida), which referred to vegetable dishes, though some are with fish or, as in this case, meat, which were starters.

This dish is also unusual in that it is one of a relatively small number calling for beef. It is first boiled in water and when, murrī and a thick sauce made with pounded walnuts, vinegar, rue and salt are poured over it. It is served with a sprinkling of zayt al-unfāq (زيت الأنفاق) — a term derived from the Greek omphákion (ὀμφάκινον) –, which referred to oil pressed from fresh unripe olives. The garnish includes quartered hard-boiled eggs, rue and greens herbs.

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Chicken for Melancholics

Another recipe by the Andalusian physician al-Zahrawi (d. 1013), whose name refers to his place of birth, the beautiful madinat al-Zahra’ (مدينة الزهراء), near Córdoba. This recipe is his version of a famous medieval dish, known as isfidhbāj (a word from Persian meaning ‘white stew’) because it was originally made with cheese. It was one of the dishes introduced to al-Andalus by Ziryab, and became known as tafāyā (تفايا). However, this particular variant is not so much a stew as chicken with a sauce.

The chicken is fried with olive oil — the recipe calls for so-called zayt al-unfāq (زيت الأنفاق), which is made from unripe olives –, good-quality salt, onion juice and coriander before being cooked with grape vinegar, pomegranate juice, boiled-down wine, and aromatics like cassia, cloves, spikenard, and pepper. The author included it among the dishes that are particularly useful for melancholics, but it has the added benefit of countering palpitations and tremors. Furthermore, he added that it was ‘tried and tested’. Surely, the right kind of dish for cold winter months when we can all need a boost.

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Medieval Andalusian Goat Stew

This is a recreation of a wonderful recipe created by one of the most important physicians of the Middle Ages, the Cordoba-born Abū al-Qāsim al-Zahrāwī, who was court physician to the Andalusian caliph ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III al-Nāṣir, and has been considered the father of modern surgery. It’s made with kid (or a pullet, if you can’t get goat),

Take one pound of tender meat, or meat from a young goat or chicken, whichever is available. After cutting it up, it is cooked with some onion, salt, and almond oil (which is tob preferred over olive oil). After crushing raisins into a paste with some vinegar, the strained off liquid is added to the meat, along with galangal, cassia, saffron, and thirty (yes exactly!) peeled pistachios. Once everything is cooked, it’s ready to serve. It is apparently a dish that strengthens the liver and stomach. Just what the doctor ordered!

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Aleppine Sour Orange Stew

Sour orange stews — known as nāranjiyya (نارنجية) after the word for ‘sour orange’, nāranj (today, they’re often also referred to as bu-safīr (بوصفير) or burtuqāl murr (برتقال مرّ, ‘bitter orange’) –were very popular in the medieval Arab culinary tradition and recipes can be found in multiple cookery books. This particular variety is from 13th-century Aleppo, and requires cooking a jointed chicken in sesame oil, chicken fat with onions, almonds and sour orange juice. The taste is enhanced by fresh mint, cinnamon, and mastic. It’s quite tangy so you might wish to sweeten it with sugar, but the author advises doing without since that is the way the dish should be done. Additionally, chefs are advised that the person peeling the sour oranges should not be the one extracting the juice!

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Purslane goat stew

Known in al-Andalus as tafāyā (تفايا), a word of Berber origin, it is one of the dishes allegedly imported by the famous Abbasid musician and gastronome Ziryāb (d. 852). In the East, it was known as isfīdhbāj(a), a Persian borrowing which translates as ‘white stew’ because it was originally made with cheese.

It seems to have suited the Andalusian palate since it became extremely popular; it would be served as the first course of every meal, whereas the great physician Ibn Zuhr (1094–1162) claimed it was one of the best ways to cook meat.

This particular tafāyā is made with kid (a small goat), which is cooked with water, salt, olive oil, coriander, mint, almonds, onions, purslane and, of course, lots of eggs! The result is aptly called a ‘green’ tafāyā.