This is a recipe from 13th-century Aleppo for a very simple type of biscuit, which was a variant for a sweet known as ‘urnīn‘, which was quite popular since another recipe can be found in a Baghdadi cookery book.
In Arabic it is called khubz al-abāzīr (خبز الأبازير), which translates as spiced, or seeded bread; its preparation could not be more simple and involves kneading wheat flour with sesame oil, sesame seeds, pistachios and almonds and then shaping it into round cakes before baking until browned. The full urnīn recipe, in case you’re wondering, includes a filling of sugar pistachios and almonds, added with aromatics like rose water and musk. But that, as they say, is for another day! For now, it is time to enjoy the more basic variety!
This recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook is the ancestor of the modern North African almond-stuffed crescent-shaped biscuits, often called by their French name of cornes de gazelle, which are known in Arabic either as qarn al-ghazāl (قرن الغزال) or ka’b al-ghazāl (كعب الغزال, ‘gazelle ankles’), as they were in the Middle Ages. In Algeria, they are commonly called tcharek (تشاراك ) msakker (مسكّر, ‘sugared’).
Unlike the present-day sweets, the 13th-century variety was shaped into rolls. The dough is made with flour, olive oil, hot water and salt, added with fennel seeds, aniseed, pepper and ginger. For the stuffing, sugar and almonds are mixed together with rose water and aromatic spices. The dough is then shaped into very thin rolls in which the stuffing is placed before baking them in the oven. The author adds that some ‘refined people’ (ظرفاء, ẓurafā’) add crushed pine nuts to the filling, as well as whole pine nut into each roll. After baking, they should be kept in a jar, but, based on how good they are, I don’t think anyone needs a particularly big one!
A 13th-century North African and Andalusi twist on the famous ‘Cairene‘ sweet (قاهرية) –fried marzipan doughnuts . This particular iteration from The Exile’s Cookbook requires a mixture made with sugar, almonds, rose water, cassia, cinnamon, spikenard, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, galangal, and camphor. This is formed into small kaʿk shapes — i.e. small rings. Then, it’s time to make the batter, with flour, sugar, yeast, starch, salt, and again some almonds.
The author recommends using almond oil for the deepfrying, though olive oil is a suitable alternative. Once the oil has come to a boil, the qahiriyya are ready for their hot bath — just long enough for them to brown, after which they should be swiftly removed. Serve drenched in honey or thickened rose-water syrup, and dust with caster sugar. Yes, indeed!
This intriguing recipe from 14th-century Egypt for turning dried figs into fresh ones is very simple. A mixture of honey and saffron is stuffed into the dates which are then placed on a pot with boiling water and leaving the steam to do the rest. Then the figs should be covered and left to rest overnight, after which, so the author explains, “they will become as if they have just been picked.” Whilst this is perhaps an exaggeration, the result is nonetheless spectacular and very tasty.
This is the ancestor of the modern North African delicacy, known as sfenj (سفنج) in Morocco and Algeria, bambalunī (بمبلوني < Italian bombolone) in Tunisia, and sfinz (سفنز) in Libya. Both the Arabic word isfanj (إسفنج) and the English ‘sponge’ go back to the Greek σπογγιά, albeit via the Latin spongia (spongea).
Interestingly enough, in this recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook is, in fact, very similar to another Arab sweet variously known as ‘awwāma (عوامة, ‘floater’), luqmat al-Qāḍī (لقمة القاضي, ‘The Judge’s morsel’), zalābiyya (زلابية) or luqayma (لقيمة, ‘little morsel’), depending on the region.
This particular isfanj is made with semolina, water, salt and yeast being kneaded into a light dough. After proofing, the idea is to take some dough into your hand and clench your fist, as a result of which some of the dough is forced out from between your thumb and index finger. It is this piece that protrudes that will be deep-fried in olive oil.
They were made in two sizes — small and large, known respectively as mughaddar (مغدّر) and aqṣād (أقصاد). Once the isfanj have turned golden, remove them from the pan and, after draining off the oil, and serve. Note that before frying up the first batch, the author recommends using one shaped like a modern doughnut shape to test whether the dough has been sufficiently proofed. They are particularly nice when dunked in honey!
This recipe from The Sultan’s Feast for preserving citron pulp calls for sugar, pistachios, (toasted) hazelnuts, rose jam (home-made, of course!), saffron, musk and rose water, all of which are cooked together. The author recommends storing it in a wide-mouthed clay jar fumigated with agarwood and ambergris, after which it should be covered well ‘so that the vapours cannot escape’, which ‘is the height of goodness’. A tall claim but one that is indeed borne out by the result!
It is a wonderful combination of complementary tangy and aromatic flavours, and is not only a tasty side, but also an amazing alternative to the marmalade on your morning toast!
This recreation of a medieval classic across the Muslim world is based on a recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook. The rice pudding (al-aruzz bi ’l-laban al-ḥalīb; الأرزّ بالبن الحليب) is made with strained sheep’s milk, though the author mentions that cow’s milk is also acceptable, with goat’s milk coming a distant third. The rice is cooked until done, after which it is time to mix in a bit of salt crushed in milk or water by gentle stirring. It is served in a dish with a bowl of honey in the middle. It should be eaten with ‘clean boxwood spoons.’ As the author of the cookbook hailed from Murcia, rice and honey from this region were used in the recreation.
There was a variant with mutton or, especially, chicken, which was, in fact, more common, and was usually known as muhallabiyya, which became the medieval European staple blancmanger. The present-day muhallabiyyas (a milk pudding made with rice or flour) are all made without meat, and thus similar to the recreation. The closest descendant of the medieval meat rice pudding is the Turkish tavuk göğsü.
A recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook for a delicious ring-shaped biscuit (كعك, ka’k), which is made by boiling pounded dry dates mixed with rose water and aromatics. When the mixture has the required consistency, let it cool down and then mould it into thin rolls which are used as a filling for ka’k dough. Then it’s time for the fun part of shaping the dough into rings before baking them. The taste is very much like the modern ma’moul (معمول). A modern descendant — or perhaps a suriviing ancestor (!) — is the Algerian ka’k al-naqqash (كعك النقّاش), which translates as ‘the engraver’s biscuits’.
This is the ancestor of the favourite Ramadan sweet, which, in its modern version, is made with shredded phyllo soaked in butter or ghee, with a filling of a mixture of cheese or cream and sugar, and topped with pistachios, almonds or walnuts. After it is baked, it is drenched in syrup.
The origins of this sweet are to be found in Egypt; the word comes from the Coptic kenefiten, which denoted a kind of loaf or cake. It was very popular in the Middle Ages, and there are nearly twenty-five recipes across six cookery books from Syria, Egypt, and al-Andalus, between the 13th and 15th centuries. The medieval kunāfa was essentially a thin flatbread, equated with a ruqāq, which was usually fried in oil, rolled up, cut up or kept whole as a crepe. Honey is often involved.
The present recreation is based on a 15th-century Egyptian recipe for a ‘cooked (مطبوخ, matbūkh) kunāfa’ from The Sultan’s Feast. The dough is cut up into thin strips, like noodles, which are cooked in sesame oil, sugar and honey. Once everything has been sufficiently stirred, it’s time to fold in saffron-dyed blanched almonds or pistachios, before adding musk and rose water. According to the author it can be stored in a container and stay good for a year. I must admit I have not put this to the test — anyway, I think the real question, of course, is who would be able to keep this delicacy for that long without eating it!
This particular variety of kunāfa has survived in the Algerian mchelwech (المشلوش), a speciality of the city of Constantine, and, perhaps more suprisingly, the Uzbek national dessert Chak Chak.
A recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook for a jar-shaped cake, though in the text it is called an isfanj (إسفنج), which usually denotes a doughnut. It is made by making a smooth slack dough with semolina flour. After it has risen, it is placed in an earthenware jar generously coated with olive oil. The dough should come up to the neck of the jar and in the middle a stick — the text specifies that it is should be a ‘palm frond stalk or cane reed without its knots’ — smeared with olive oil is placed. Once this is done, it is time to bake the cake. When it is ready, the stick is removed and some honey and clarified butter (samn) is poured down the hole. It is left to settle before breaking the jar and liberating the cake! But be careful that the cake comes out in one piece! One can imagine that this might have been done by the medieval cooks at the table to wow diners with their expertise! Of course, the adage at the time was ‘more is more’, and so before eating it, some more clarified butter and honey is poured down the hole in the middle of the cake, which is also given a good dusting with cinnamon. A fluffy honey delight, no mistake!!
