Category: Beef

Though originally hailing from the Muslim East — though the oldest recipes in fact go back to ancient Mesopotamia, the tharīda (ثريدة; also tharīd/ثريد) was extremely popular in the Muslim West, and it is in Andalusian cookery books that we find most recipes for this bread soup.

This recreation from ‘The Exile’s Cookbook’ calls for beef, gourd (use bottle gourd if you can), onion and aubergine, with seasonings including salt, pepper, ginger, coriander, saffron, cumin, garlic, citron leaves, fennel., and (unpeeled) garlic. The gourd and aubergine are cooked separately before being added to the pot with the meat and the spices. Once everything is done, some vinegar is added and then the stew is poured on crumbled bread.

Before serving, add a sprinkling of ginger and cinnamon. The recipe ends with a highly original instruction; one should blow in the bones and strike them repeatedly to expel all of the marrow, which should be spread all over the dish. The perfect comfort food!

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.

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 In the East, it was known as isfīdhbāj(a), a Persian borrowing which translates as ‘white stew’ because it was originally made with cheese.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.

A fragrant recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook for beef cooked with pomelo vinegar, murrī , garlic, salt, olive oil, pepper, coriander and garlic until it is browned, and the juices dried out. Before serving, it is perfumed with pomelo vinegar, though lemon or sour grape vinegar are suggested variants. The result is a veritable carnivore’s feast, best eaten with some flatbread.