Shah / Newman The Sultan's Feast

A Fifteenth-Century Egyptian Cookbook
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-0-86356-181-8
Verlag: Saqi Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten

The Arabic culinary tradition burst onto the scene in the middle of the tenth century when al-Warraq compiled The Book of Dishes, a culinary treatise containing over 600 recipes. It would take another three and half centuries for cookery books to be produced in the European continent. Until then, gastronomic writing remained the sole preserve of the Arab-Muslim world, with cooking manuals and recipe books being written across the region, from Baghdad in the East to Muslim Spain in the West. A total of nine complete cookery books have survived from this time, containing nearly three thousand recipes. First published in the fifteenth century, The Sultan's Feast by the Egyptian Ibn Mubarak Shah features more than 330 recipes, from bread-making and savoury stews, to sweets, pickling and aromatics, as well as tips on a range of topics. This culinary treatise reveals the history of gastronomy in Arab culture.

Daniel L. Newman holds the Chair of Arabic Studies at the University of Durham, UK.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Shah, Ibn Mubarak

Newman, Daniel L.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Newman, Daniel L.

Leseproben

THE BOOK OF FLOWERS IN THE GARDEN OF ELEGANT FOODS

ONE

Useful Things That a Cook Should Know1

A COOK SHOULD:

•   Avoid contact with dirt and filth since that will turn people away from his food.

•   Take care of his personal hygiene, have an intelligent disposition, pared nails, and clean clothes since these are attractive to people.

•   Know that the best cooking pots to choose are those made out of soapstone, followed by earthenware. Copper [containers] are bad and must be tinned.

•   Choose wood that is dry and does not produce visible smoke because it is damp. If you cook with it one day and it does not smoke, continue using it. I have cooked with dried date palm branches and found its smoke to be highly fragrant.

•   Use rock salt;2 if it is not freely available, take pure white salt, devoid of dust and rock.

•   Use the best vegetables and spices; he should find out which is the best of things he has no knowledge about so he may increase his expertise.

•   Know that fresh pepper is better than old pepper and the best ginger is that which is not worm-eaten.

•   Take great effort at cleaning spices and should only grind what he will use so as not to dilute the strength of the spice.

•   Wash the cooking vessels with hot clay, saltwort,3 dried roses, and fumigate porcelain bowls with mastic4 and agarwood5 before putting food in them. After washing the pots, wipe them down with rubbed dried sour orange or citron leaves.

For pounding meat, choose a mortar made out of stone, and for spices one made of copper. When cooking meat, remove the scum, froth and any other dirt that may float on the surface after boiling. So, before cooking meat, wash it with hot water and salt, and remove the glands, tendons, membranes and other waste that is not meant to be eaten. Remove grilled meat when it still has moisture left in it. When cooking lean meat, make sure to smear it with oil it before grilling.

The cleavers and knives should be sharpened, and the onion knife should only be used to cut onions, nothing else. Maintain the serving tray with mustard seeds.6 When there are several dishes, each pot must have its own ladle. Prepare hot water in a pot in case it needs to be added to a dish during cooking. Do not grind spices in a mortar that contains traces of the liquid or sap of others.

Do not ladle food from a pot until it has stopped boiling, and the flames and bubbling have died down. When the pot is smoking, throw in hazelnut husks. Smoke will also intensify if the meat is rotten. When preparing tripe, sprinkle lime on it and strip it as this will expel the dirt.

The cook should wash his hands before ladling food, and sanitize them with onions. If you want to thoroughly cook the meat,7 then put borax,8 wax, a bunch of watermelon veins – or its peel – in the pot.

When cooking syrups,9 prepare a receptacle with water, and use a clean white rag to wipe down the edge and sides of the copper pot whenever you observe a change [in colour]. This will prevent discolouration and burning. As for wide-mouthed earthenware jars, these should be wiped with sesame oil, while cleaning the area where your sweets have been prepared. Then place on the ground so as to protect them from ants.

Do not prepare ,10 11 and 12 together, except if you use fat, the best of which is that from a hogget.

Garlic draws forth the aromas of oils in broths, seeds and vegetables, and enhances their flavour. Pepper is used in most great dishes and seed dishes. It is also used in dishes in order to reduce the flavour of cassia and galangal; it has a powerful effect and enhances the smell of the food. You do not need a large quantity of it.

As for ground gum Arabic,13 rice flour and chickpea flour, these thicken food. If you are cooking seeds, continue stirring until you lift the dish from the fire so that they do not burn.

Do not pour oil or anything like it into the pot before removing any froth or foam. If there are some remnants of cooked meat [in the pot], apply some borax or ground dried melon peel. If the meat has changed (i.e. gone off slightly) and become greasy, take finely ground walnuts and knead them thoroughly into the meat, and then throw both into the pot. This takes away the rancidness and grease, while their oil will improve the aroma of the meat. Do not put the lid on the pot until the flames underneath it have subsided and all that remains are smooth embers, and until it is smoking. Throw the salt in after the last ingredient that requires cooking, especially grains, since salt slows down their cooking time. Vinegar should be poured on all of the ingredients, even cooked broad beans. If you make a cold dish with them, and pour some vinegar on them before eating, they become hard, as if they were raw. Alternatively, pour [the vinegar] on at the time of eating.

Dishes that have too much liquid need to be dried out, by increasing the heat; those that are dry require more hot water in a quantity to be decided by the cook. However, if water is added to , rice, beans, certain types of seeds and any legumes at the end of the cooking, it will ruin them in all instances; the flavours will disappear even if they were exquisite previously. That is why the cook should estimate the required quantity of water to be used in order to avoid having to add any afterwards.

The guiding principle of cooking is a sound combination of flavourings14 in a dish so that none dominates and there is an equilibrium of flavours.

The best way to deal with cut onions in most dishes is to wash them thoroughly in water after having cut them, and then to add them to the pot. Also, wipe the knife that is used only for onions or for garlic with high-quality olive oil.

Make sure that the knives used for chopping are sturdy, whereas those for slicing should be thin and sharp, and fit for purpose.

Aubergines and gourds must be put in water for a good hour after they are cut before they can be put in the pot [for cooking]. When aubergines are added to white [i.e. milk-based] dishes15 such as 16 or ,17 it is important to remove the outer peel and ends before throwing it in water and salt. The cook must use a separate ladle for each dish, and not use the same ladle for different dishes.

The best 18 is one with a sweet-and-sour broth and ,19 ,20 21 or clean bread.22 The quantity [of bread] should be sufficient to absorb the liquid. Push the centre [of the bread] down with a scoop and pour fat in. If the gets burnt, add rue to it and the smell will disappear. If Jerusalem cowpeas get burnt, fumigate them with a woollen cloth underneath to get rid of the smell.

If you smell an offensive odour emanating from the cooking pots, add a walnut or two, and leave for an hour; they will dry out the stench. The proof is that when you take the walnuts out, you won’t be able to bear their foul odour.

If you soak a cloth in water and hang it in the pot, it will absorb salt, as does bran. Similarly, if you heat up a scoop until it becomes red hot and hang it in the pot, it will also absorb its salt.23

If you want to cook chickpeas quickly, add a bit of mustard seeds to the pot.

If you want to keep meat tender for as long as you want, take meat from the thigh and remove the fat and bones; slice and salt well, and then leave overnight. The following morning, thoroughly clean the meat with water. Spread it out until it is dried, then rub with fat and place in a jar. Pour fat on top until it covers the meat and then put the lid on the jar. Put the quantity you like and then take it out when required. You will find that it is fresh when it is very hot, without having to use salt. Then, take the meat, and hang it from a fork lowered in a well, near the surface of the water, until it almost comes into contact with it.24 Take it out when needed and you will find that it has remained fresh.

If the meat has started to rot and its odour has changed [but] you still want to cook it, then hang two whole walnuts in the cooking pot after piercing the shells all the way to the kernel. The bad smell will be absorbed by the nuts, the inside of which will smell more putrified than a cadaver. If you break an egg inside the pot, the putrid smell will also disappear. If a small quantity of fenugreek is boiled with the meat, after the water is removed and fresh water added, the smell of putrefaction will disappear. The flavour will be such that it is impossible...