How to Milk an Almond Stuff an Egg And Armor a Turnip A ...

2 ½ c flour 1 ½ c sugar
½ c water ½ t cinnamon
½ c sourdough 3 T rosewater
1 ¼ c blanched almonds
Mix the water and sourdough and stir the
mixed liquid into the flour; we used a mix of
white and whole wheat, which works, but
there is no particular reason to do it that way.
Knead it for 10-15 minutes, adding up to an
additional ¼ c flour if necessary to keep it
from being sticky. Cover with a damp cloth
and leave to rise 3 hours in a warm place.
Grind the almonds about 40 seconds in a
food processor (or longer in a mortar) until
very finely ground. Combine with sugar and
cinnamon, stir in rose water, and knead
together.
Take 1 T of dough, flour it, roll between
your hands to a 4" long cylinder. Flatten with
your finger, making the middle lower than the
edges (i.e. a depression almost 4" long down
the middle of the dough). Fill with about 1 ½ t
of the sugar/almond mixture. Fold the dough
up over the filling, making a tube of dough
filled with filling about 4" long, sealed at both
ends. Bend it into a ring (small bracelet). Put
on an oiled cookie sheet, bake at 300° 40
minutes.
My guess at the size and shape of the
individual pieces is based on a description of
something with the same name (but different
structure) in a modern cookbook (by Claudia
Rodin). You can also use 2 T of dough, 1 T of
filling, make a cylinder 6" long. Or
experiment with other sizes. You can flatten
the ring either by pressing it down against the
cookie sheet or by making it like a napkin
ring. Experiment.
Recipe for Oven Cheese Pie, Which We
Call Toledan
Andalusian p. A-62
Make dough as for musammana and make a
small leafy round loaf of it. Then roll it out and
put sufficient pounded cheese in the middle. Fold
over the ends of the loaf and join them over the
cheese on all sides; leave a small hole the size of a
dinar on top, so the cheese can be seen, and
118
sprinkle it with some anise. Then place it in the
oven on a slab, and leave it until it is done, take it
out and use it, as you wish.
2 c semolina flour 6 oz feta or other cheese
~ ⅝-¾ c water ⅛ t anise, ground
¼ c = ⅛ lb butter
Make dough as in Musammana recipe (p.
121) and divide into 4 pieces. Flatten each to
about 6"x 8". Put 1 ½ oz cheese in the middle
of each. Sprinkle with anise. Fold the edges in
and join, leaving a small space open in the
center. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes
Recipe for Mujabbana (Fried Cheese Pie)
Andalusian p. A-61
Know that mujabbana isn't prepared with
only one cheese, but of two; that is, of cow's and
sheep's milk cheese. Because if you make it with
only sheep cheese, it falls apart and the cheese
leaves it and it runs. And if you make it with
cow's cheese, it binds, and lets the water run and
becomes one sole mass and the parts don't
separate. The principle in making it is that the
two cheeses bind together. Use one-fourth part
cow's milk and three-quarters of sheep's. Knead
all until some binds with its parts another [Huici
Miranda observes that this passage is faintly
written and only a few letters can be made out]
and becomes equal and holds together and doesn't
run in the frying pan, but without hardening or
congealing. If you need to soften it, soften it with
fresh milk, recently milked from the cow. And let
the cheese not be very fresh, but strong
without...[words missing]...that the moisture has
gone out of. Thus do the people of our land make
it in the west of al-Andalus, as in Cordoba and
Seville and Jerez, and elsewhere in the land of the
West.
Manner of Making it: Knead wheat or
semolina flour with some yeast into a well-made
dough and moisten it with water little by little
until it loosens. If you moisten it with fresh milk
instead of water it is better, and easy, inasmuch
as you make it with your palm. Roll it out and
let it not have the consistency of mushahhada,
but firmer than that, and lighter than
musammana dough. When the leaven begins to