Friday 25 October 2019

Arabic: Madira (Al-Baghdadi)

This is a delicious medieval arab recipe from the excellent book: "Medieval Arab cookery" by Maxime Rodinson.

served with barberry cous cous

Madira is a main-course meat dish comprising mainly of cooked meat with leeks and spices and with yoghurt mixed in.

Basic recipe (quick overview - step-by-step is below)

Madira recipe
  1. Cut the meat into middling pieces with the tail, if chickens are used quarter them
  2. Put into saucepan with a little salt, cover with water and boil, removing the scum.
  3. When almost boiled, take large onions and Nabatean leeks (small leeks). peel, cut off the tails, wash in salt and water, dry and put into the pot.
  4. Add dry coriander, cumin mastic and cinnamon, ground fine.
  5. When cooked, and the juices are dried up, so that only the oil remains, ladle out into a large bowl.
  6. Now take persian milk (curdled milk) as required, and put into the saucepan added salted lemon and fresh mint.
  7. Leave to boil then take off the fire stirring.
  8. When the boiling has subsided, put back the meat and herbs.
  9. Cover the saucepan, wipe it's sides, and leave to settle over the fire, then remove.

Step-by-step

1. Cut the meat into middling pieces with the tail, if chickens are used quarter them

"Cut meat into middling pieces: if chickens are used, quarter them"

I just bought chicken thighs... already "quartered"

2. Put into saucepan with a little salt...

"put into the saucepan with a little salt"

...cover with water and boil, removing the scum.

"cover with water and boil, removing the scum"

Here I've just covered the meat with water and am putting it on to boil. i didn't bother removing the scum... it didn't seem to be particularly scummy and didn't affect the flavour at all.

3. When almost boiled, take large onions and Nabatean leeks (small leeks)...

"take large onions and nabatean leeks"

From reading elsewhere in the book, nabtean leeks were small ones... luckily my grocer happened to have baby leeks, which were perfect. In years since I've grown my own and I'm an expert in growing non-full-sized leeks now ;) (AKA I can't get them to grow beyond a certain size before they bolt) so that's just perfect!

...peel, cut off the tails, wash in salt and water, dry and put into the pot.

"cut off the tails, wash in salt and water"

The recipe calls for them just to be tailed and put into the pot. It doesn't say anything about chopping them smallers... so I chose to put them in whole because I thought that'd be cool.

It was cool while cooking, and looked interesting on the plate, but it was annoying while eating as they come out in huge big long fibrous mats. Next time I'll chop them at least in half/thirds so they're less clumpy.

4. Add dry coriander, cumin, mastic, and cinnamon, ground fine.

"add dry coriander, mastic, cumin and cinnamon ground fine"

I took "dry coriander" to mean "seed not leaf", and bought ground spices from my favourite spice-shop.

I like Herbies spices, BTW - they're really good flavours and have very good plastic bags made for long-term storage. They also have a wide range of "interesting" spices like mastic. I've always been able to find the odd medieval spices there... cubebs, grains of paradise etc... all off-the-shelf. and it's a lovely little shop to visit.

PS - totally not affiliated I just think they're awesome.

"ground fine"

The recipe doesn't have amounts, so I'm guessing based on my own past experimentation with similar recipes. This is how much i used of each.

I've never used mastic before and had to guess how much to use. I went and looked at other recipes and from guesstimations figured that a half a teaspoon would do.

The recipe calls for grinding, but only the mastic needed grinding this time around - the rest I had pre-ground spices for ease of convenience. Pre-ground spices don't last as long, of course.

5. When cooked, and the juices are dried up, so that only the oil remains, ladle out into a large bowl.

cooking cooking cooking - progress photos... you can imagine the montage-muzak yourself.

cooking so far... juices not dried up yet.
cooking so far...
"when cooked and so the juices are dried up, ladle out into a large bowl"

And finally it looks enough like the juices have dried up for me to ladle the stuff out into a bowl...

6. Now take persian milk (curdled milk) as required, and put into the saucepan added salted lemon and fresh mint.

"salted lemon and fresh mint"

Here I've chopped up the fresh mint and am about to prepare the salted lemon.

"take persian milk as required"

Persian milk is basically runny yoghurt. I've got potted-yoghurt here - fairly stiff, so I add a little milk later to make it runny. Plus I roughly chopped the mint and lemon.

"take persian milk as required and add it to the saucepan"

All plopped into the pot together

persian milk consistency

And this is the consistency once it's all mixed in.

7. Leave to boil then take off the fire stirring.

"leave to boil then take it off the fire, stirring"

So here I'm mixing the yoghurt and mint together and bringing it up to temperature again.

8. When the boiling has subsided, put back the meat and herbs.

"when the boiling has subsided put back the meat and herbs"

So now I add back the meat and "herbs" to the pot and basically mix it all in together.

9. Cover the saucepan, wipe it's sides, and leave to settle over the fire, then remove.

served with barberry cous cous

Here it is all done, and served with cous-cous to which I've added barberries. Nom.

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